
Qass. 
Book. 



1-5 7 



^ ^ 

NOTES 



FIRST PLANTING 



Ne^n Hampshire 



AND ON THE 



PI SCAT AQUA PATENTS. 



JOHN S. JENNESS. 



PRIVATELY PRINTED. 



PORTSMOUTH : 

PRINTED BY LEWIS W. BREWSTER. 
1878. 



NOTES 



FIF\ST PLANTING 



EW HAMPS 



H 



AMI ON THE 



PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 



JOHN S: JENNESS. 



FRIA^-A-TEL^^^- FE-IIsTTErD. 



PORTSMOUTH: 

I'RINTl'Ii I'.Y LEWIS \V. HKEWSTF.K, 
1S78. 



TEE \m PLiTlM; (IF W 



Whether the first settlement within the limits of 
ISTew Hampshire Avas made at Little Harbor near 
the mouth of the Piscataqua, or at Dover IsTeck 
some six miles aj3 the river, is a question which 
has long- employed the studies and pens of our lo- 
cal antiquaries, and of late has found its way into 
the discussions and acts of our Legislature. Each 
of these localities has its warm partizans, who have 
brought to the controversy research and ingenuity 
in such equal measure, that the question seems, in- 
deed, to have been buried still deeper in doubt and 
obscui-ity by their confusing speculations. It is 
much to be regretted that uncertainty should rest 
ove)- the most intei'esting of all periods in the his- 
tory of our state, that of its birth and infancy; 
and we feel that an effort to clear away this uncer- 
tainty and to bring out into the light the truthful 
picture of those earliest days, will well be worth 
the making. 



4 THE FIEST PLANTEtsTG 

The date of the settlement upon the promontory, 
now called Odiorne's Point, at the smaller mouth 
of the Piscataqua river, is not a matter of dispute. 
Mr. David Thomson, a resident of Plymouth, Eng- 
land, having' procured from the Grand Council of 
Plymouth, Nov. 15, 1622, a patent for six thousand 
acres of land to be selected by him in Xew Eng- 
land, sailed from Plymouth in mid-winter with a 
handful of colonists in the good ship called the 
"Jonathan of Plymouth," (the Mayflower of New 
Hampshire,) and arrived at the Piscataqua in the 
early spring of 1623. Mr. Thomson's design was 
to found a plantation, convenient for trade and the 
fisheries, somewhere near the mouth of the Piscat- 
aqua river, and as he had visited ]S^ew England in 
previous years, and was familiar with the coast, it 
seems probable that the site of his settlement had 
been determined upon before he left England upon 
his present enterprise. David Thomson is de- 
scribed by Morton in"T/?e New England Canaan,'" 
published in 1637 as being "a Scottish gentleman, 
that was conversant with those people (the natives) 
a scholar and traveller that was diligent in taking- 
notice of these things, as a man of good judgment.'" 

The original agreement or indenture, under 
which Thomson came over, was recovered several 
years ago among the ancient Winthrop papers, and 
has recently been published by Charles Deane, 
Esq., accompanied by copious and learned notes. 



OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 5 

Prom this it appears that Thomson had three Ply- 
mouth merchants as partners or co-adventurers 
with him in his enterprise, named Abraham Col- 
mer, Nicholas Sherwill and Leonard Pomerie, who 
were to contribute to the expenses of founding- and 
carrying on the new plantation, and to share in its 
j)ropei'ty at the expiration of the partnership. 
David Thomson's colony, which first landed with 
him at Little Harbor, comprised probably not more 
than ten men. 

The indenture referred to provides that the little 
colony "so landed, shall and will use their best en- 
deavor (by the direccon of said David Thomson) 
with as much conveniencie as maye be, to find out 
4f*y-*^* some fitt place to settle and Builde some 
houses or buildings for habitacons, on which they 
are to begin with as muche expedicon as they maye; 
to the lymits and precincts of which habitacons or 
buildings soe intented to be there erected, there 
shall be allotted of the lands next thereunto adjoin- 
inge, at or before the end of five years next ensu- 
ing the date hereof, the full quantitie.of six hun- 
dred acres of land or neere thereabouts." 

In pursuance of this clause of the Lidenture, 
Thomson and his men selected the Point at Little 
Harbor as a "fitt place to build their houses for 
habitacons" and began upon them with as much 
expedicon as they could. The site selected for the 
settlement was chosen with excellent judgment. 



6 THE FIRST PLAXriiN^G 

From the Little Harbor fronting the north side of 
the promontory a salt water creek runs back so far 
towards the ocean, as almost to convei't the en- 
closed point into an island of about six hundred 
acres area, which was the precise amount of land 
required by the Indenture to be allotted to the new 
plantation. The soil is good, and among the i-ocks 
on the harbor shore is a living spring of fresh watei'. 
The harbor is safe and accessible at all times to 
vessels of light draught, and most commodiously 
situated for the prosecution of the fisheries, as w^ell 
as for the peltry traffic with the Indians of Saga- 
more Creek and Piscatacpia river. Above all oth- 
er advantages in those perilous times, the Point, 
rising on every side towards its centre and almost 
surrounded by water, was easily defensible against 
the assaults of savages. These considerations 
probably determined Thomson in the selection of 
this site for the new plantation, which he named, 
perhaps from the Indian appellation, "Pannaway" — 
a name, which seems however not to have survived 
the period of Thomson's own occupation and own- 
ership of the plantation. 

The principal dwelling house erected at Panna- 
way was built of stone, and of considerable size. 
Hubbard informs us that ''the chimney and some 
part of the stone wall were standing in his day" 
(1680). The house, which, a few years after its 
erection, passed into the hands of Capt. John Ma- 



OF NEW TIAMPSHIKE. 7 

son and his associates, was afterwards called by 
these i)i"oprietoi"s "Piscataqua House," and some- 
times in popular parlance, "Captain Mason's stone 
house." It was nev^er designated, we believe, Ma- 
son's Hall, though Hubbard and his followers have 
stated to the contrary. The term '^Mason's Hall" 
was sometimes though rarely applied to the "Great 
House" at Strawberry Bank, erected by the adven- 
turers of Laconia about 1631."^ 

Thomson's House, erected in 1623 at Pannaw^ay, 
seems from its remains to have been laid upon a 
foundation of sea sand and small stones packed close 
into a trench. The sea sand is identical in appear- 
ance with that still abundantly founil on the harbor 
shore in front of the house. There was no cellar 
beneath the building. The walls above the foun- 
dations were built of a slate-like shale laid in blue 
cla}^ both of which material are abundant in that 
immediate neighborhood. Gov. Winthrop built for 
himself a dwelling house at Mistick of similar ma- 
terial a few years later. f When not greatly exposed 
to the rain, the tough clay of Little Harbor is as 
durable as the best mortar. The chimney of the 
ancient Jaflfrey house at I^ew Castle, as Mr. Albee, 
its present occupant, informs us, was laid in this 
clay two centuries ago, and still stands strong and 
solid. 

*See Jenness Orig. Docs, relating to New Hampshire, 
fl Wlnthrop 63. 



8 THE FIRST PLANTING 

With these materials close at hand, Thomson 
and his colony could have erected a comfortable 
and spacious habitation in a short time after their 
landing. Little or nothing would have been re- 
quired from England for that purpose beyond win- 
dow glass, hardware and househokl utensils. The 
site of the Pannaway house is still confidently 
pointed out by the present owners of the territory, 
and part of the foundation walls are believed to 
have been exposed by the excavations for a I'oad, 
which, about thirty years ago, was laid out from the 
main highway to the harbor. Close by llie house, the 
foundations of a small building, supposed to have 
been a blacksmith's shop, are pointed out. Among 
its debris have been recently found, by very slight 
excavations along the road-side, charcoal and ash- 
es, nails, pieces of iron, a pipe-stem, etc , and also, 
strange to relate, parts of a human skeleton. No 
doubt, several other buildings wei-e erected around 
the principal dwelling, such as a cooper's shop, a 
carpenter's shop, storehouses, boat houses and 
barns, but no remains of these have as yet been 
discovered. 

The fishing stages and fish houses, we conjec- 
ture, were put up in the sheltered coves upon the 
ocean side of the point, and in close proximity to 
Flake Hill as it is called, where, according to tradi- 
tion, the fish were dried. In one of these cove© 
are still to be seen numbers of wooden spiles driv- 



OF NEW HAMPSHIEE. 9 

en into the sand, which once served, probably, as a 
foundation for fish houses or boat houses. Be- 
tween Fhike Hill and the main building lies a well 
filled cemetery, which holds all that remains of the 
first settlei'S of Xew Hampshire. From the long 
s|)ace between the head stones and foot stones, 
many of which are still standing, this cemetery 
seems to have been a grave yard of men. We 
found no small graves in this ancient GocVs Acre. 
Nature herself has erected a most appropriate mon- 
ument to the memory of the hardy, daring men 
who laid the foundations of our state amid the dan- 
gers and pi'ivations of the wilderness, and have here 
at last taken up their rest. Out of the very graves 
near the centre of the small cemetery rises a rug- 
ged gnarled walnut tree, bent and distorted in its 
struggles of two centuries against the elements — 
a memoi'ial and symbol of the courage and fortitude 
of the ancient Pannaway men, Avhose long slum- 
bers the noble tree defiantly protects. 

Pannaway house must have been a structure of 
considerable size to have afforded accommodation 
to Thomson and his new colony; and as it was put 
up by ordinary English workmen, we may reasona- 
bly conjecture, that it followed the general plan 
and presented the general appearance of the dwel- 
ling houses of the time of James L, vast numbers 
of which still remain in good preservation all over 
the old country. As soon as his buildings were put 



10 THE FIEST PLANTING 

in habitable condition, Thomson entered actively 
into the prosecntion of his enterprise at the Piscat- 
aqua, and he continued engag'ed in that business at 
Pannaway until about the expii'ation of the slijnila- 
ted term of co-partnership with tlie Plymouth Mer- 
chants, in Xov. 1627. 

Pannaway plantation became at once well known 
along the iS^ew Englnnd coast, and was visited 
within its very first year by many of the most in- 
teresting and sti'iking characters connected with our 
early histor3\ Phinehas Pratt came there as early 
as May, 1623, and befoi-e the great crackling fires 
of a cold spring, recounted, no doubt, the stor^' of 
the teri'ible winter he had passed at Wessaguscus; 
of his marvellous escape from the murderous sav- 
ages across a trackless frozen forest for near fifty 
miles into New Plymouth in quest of succor, and of 
the valiant achievements of the redoubtable Miles 
Standish, who, with a small band of soldiers, set 
out the very next day from the Pilgrim village, and 
slaying Pecksuot, the savage chief, with his own 
hand, succeded in dispersing the Indians and res- 
cuing the trembling, exhausted planters of Wessa- 
guscus from impending annihilation. 

A month or two later, came into Pannaway a 
half-drowned, half-naked man, imploring succor 
and ])rotection. He proved to be Mr. Thomas 
Weston, the fiiithful friend and agent of the Pil- 
grim fathers in England before they sailed; awav 



OF IVEW HAMPSHIRE. 1] 

for the new world, though at present they enter- 
tained towai'ds him sentiments of distrust and un- 
kindhness. His poHtical and religious sentiments 
did not accord with those of the separatists at New 
Plymouth. Weston had now been cast away, 
while cruising along the New Hampshire coast be- 
tween Boar's Head and Merrimack river; his shal- 
lop was wrecked, and himself afterwards assailed 
and stripped of his clothes by the Indians, The 
miserable man succeeded at last, however, in making 
his way along the coast into Pannaway, and there 
he was clad and restored to health and furnished 
with means to return to Plymouth. 

About this same time, the Pilgrim hero, Miles 
Standish himself, made his appearance at Panna- 
way. "Standish," says Hubbard, "had been bred 
a soldier in the Low countries and never entered 
the school of Christ or of John the Baptist, or if 
ever he was there, he had forgot his first lessons. 
A little chimney is soon fired, so was the Plymouth 
captain, a man of very small stature yet of a verv 
hot and angry temper.'"^ The valiant captain, at 
the conclusion of his stout achievements in the res- 
cue of Wessaguscus, was employed to buj^ provi- 
sions at the eastward "for the refreshing of the 
Plymouth colon}'." He must have been at Panna- 
way about the last of June, as he returned to 
Plymouth in July, laden with the pi'ovisions he 

*Hubbard N. E. p. 84. 



12 THE rmST PLANTIXG 

was ill quest of, and bi'iiiging along in his company 
our Mr. David Thomson from Pannaway.* 

The next imjDortant visitor at Pannavvay was 
Capt. Christopher Levett, "his majesty's woodward 
for Somersetshire," as he describes himself. Lev- 
ett's design was to establish a city at some eligible 
spot along the JSTew England coast, to be named 
"York," after the metropolitan cit}^ in England, 
and to found there, in all pomp and circumstance, 
a full prelatical establishment over all N^ew Eng- 
land. Capt Levett was an officer in the royal 
navy, high in favor at court, and of much distinc- 
tion in the old country. He stayed at Pannaway 
about a month during the early spring of 1624, 
awaiting the arrival of his men^ to begin his search 
along the coast for some suitable site for his pro- 
jected city. 

While Levett still remained at Pannaway, Gov- 
ernor Kobert Gorges arrived there with a consid- 
erable company. Robert Gorges was the son of 
Sir Ferdinand© Gorges and "like his fathei-, of 
an active enterprising genius, and had newly re- 
turned from the Venetian war."f He came out with 
a commission under the Great Seal, appointing him 
"Lieutenant General and Governor of New Eng- 
land," and designating Capt. Christopher Levett, 
before mentioned, as one of his Council. It was 

*Mourt's Relation. 

t Belknap, Life of Gorges. 



OF IS^EW HAMPSHIRE. 13 

at Pannaway that the ceremony of installing Lev- 
ett into his high office was performed by Governor 
Gorges, assisted by three others of his Council, and 
in the presence of all the people, no doubt, then at 
the plantation. We may be sure that this ceremony, 
to which it was desirable to give as much distinct- 
tion and publicity as possible, was performed in a 
most imposing manner on that great and stirring 
day in the annals of Pannaway. 

That the Indians were visitors at Pannaway dur- 
ing the very first year of its foundation, appears 
from the narrative of Phinehas Pratt, who writes 
that " at the time of his (Capt. Levett) being at Pas- 
cataway a sachem or Sagamor gave two of his men, 
one to Capt. Levett and another to Mr. Thomson:" 
but one that was there said, "How can you trust 
those savages? Call the name of one 'Watt Tyler' 
and the other 'Jack Straw,' after the names of the 
two greatest Pebills yt ever were in England." 

x^either was the society of women wholly lack- 
ing at Pannaway during this period. David Thom- 
son's wife resided with him at his new plantation, 
and it is reasonable to believe that she came not 
without female companions. And it was here at 
Pannaway, that John, the son of David, it is be- 
lieved, first saw the light — the first-born of ^ew 
Hampshire. 

We have thus sketched, as briefly as possible, 
some of the principal events in the history of Pan- 



14 THE FIRST PLAXTING 

naway for the first year of its existence, fi-oin tiie 
spring of 1623 to the spring of 1024. It is not 
within the design of this pa])er to follow its history 
any fnrther. It will suffi(.'e onr present i)ai'pose to 
add, that the plantation founded by David Thom- 
son and his co-adventurers at Little Harbor passed 
in 1630, by way of lease, into the hands of the 
company of Laconia. It was then that the doughty 
soldiei' of fortune, Capt. Walter Neale, the Gov- 
ei'uor for that company, and the woi'thy compeer 
of Miles Standish himself, took possession of Pan- 
naway as his ^'chiefe habitacon," and thus preserved 
the nucleus of the future State of Xew Hampshire. 
The Pannaway plantation, the story of whose 
birth and inf\incy we have thus outlined, was, we 
are convinced, prior in date to any other settle- 
ment within the limits of our State, and sevei-al 
years anterior to that of Edward Hilton at Dover 
Point. The earliest period to which the latter set- 
tlement can be referred upon any of the testimony 
which has come down to us, is the year 1628, oi' 
possibly the yeai- 1627. If there had been any set- 
tlement at Dover Neck prior to that period, there 
exists the testimony of no contemi)oi'ary, to the ef- 
fect that he had visited it or had seen it, or had 
heard of it from rumor or I'eport. And certainly 
it is highly improbalde that such a settlement could 
have existed for four or five years up the Piscata- 
qua river, without having been known to the Pil- 



or NEW HAMPSHIRE. 15 

gv'un historians, such as Bradford and Winslow, 
nor once spoken of or refen-ed to by any of the 
numerons visitoi'S at Pannaway. 

If Hilton's Point had been settled as early as 
1G23, would not the planters and servants employed 
there have found occasions to meet constantly and 
familiarly with their countrymen at the thriving 
plantation of Pannaway onl}^ six miles distant? 
would not the existence of a Hilton's Point colony 
have been as well and widely known as that of 
Pannaway itself? And yet no settlement at Hil- 
ton's Point until several years subsequent to that 
of Thomson at Little Harbor, is refei-red to by any 
Xew England writer of that time or in any con- 
tempoi'aneous paper, letter, affidavit or document 
of any kind. On the contrarj^ Christopher Lev- 
ett, Esq. who, as we have seen, spent a month at 
Pannaway in the early spring of 1624, so far from 
having heard of any English settlement up the 
river, writes thus on his leaving for the Eastward: 
''About two miles further to the East, I found a 
great river and a good harbor, called Pascattaway, 
but tor the ground I can say nothing, but by the 
relation of the Sagamore or King of that place, 
who told me there was much good ground up in 
the river about seven or eight leagues."'* 

Certainly, if Hilton had settled a plantation at 
Dover I^eck in 1623, Levett must during his long 

*2 Maine Hist. Col. p. 80. 



16 THE FIKST PLANTING 

visit to David Thomson have heard of such a set- 
tlement, and would not have been compelled to rely 
upon an Indian Sagamore for a description of the 
Piscataqua river; nor is it likely that he would 
have passed over without notice so important a 
circumstance as the loundation there of a new 
English colony. It is fair to conclude, in the 
absence of direct testimony on the subject, that up 
to the time of Levett's visit to Pannaway in 1624. 
the Piscataqua above its mouth still remained a 
solitude unbroken by white settlers. 

The patent of Hilton's Point was granted to 
Edward Hilton, March 12, 1629 (1630, according 
to our , present style of reckoning,) about sev&n 
years after the settlement of Thomson at Panna- 
way. Can it be believed that Hilton founded a plan- 
tation at Hilton's Point, in 1623, seven years before 
he got a deed of the land his plantation stood 
upon? No great expense would certainly have 
been incurred by him until he had first acquired 
title to the soil. JSTor did Edward Hilton himself 
ever to our knowledge make any pretence to 
having begun a plantation on the Piscataqua at so 
early a date. The patent granted to him in 1630 
recites, as usual with such instruments, the utmost 
that he claimed to have done at Hilton's Point be- 
fore that year. The language is this, "that Ed- 
ward Hilton and his associates hath already at his 
and their own projjer costs and charges transported 



OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 17 

sundry sei'vants to plant in New England afore- 
said at a place there called by the natives Wecana- 
cohunt, otherwise Hilton's Point, lying some two 
leagues from the mouth of the river Pascataquack 
in New England aforesaid, where they have al- 
ready built some houses and planted corn, and for 
that he does further intend by God's Divine As- 
sistance to transport thither more people and cat- 
tle, &c."* 

It will be seen that Hilton made no claim to 
having settled a plantation at Hilton's Point so 
early as 1623. as he naturally would have done 
had such been the fact. Nor is their any pretence 
in the patent that he had set iq^ fishing stages there, 
as Belknap and others, following Hubbard, have 
asserted. The language of the Grant imports 
simply that the plantation at Hilton's Point was to 
be carried on for trade and agriculture, and that 
feeble beginnings in that direction had been very 
lately made, to be followed by a more strenuous 
exertion and a largei* outlay upon the acquisition 
of title to the plantation. Edward Hilton lived on 
the Piscataqua for many years after founding his 
plantation, and was a gentleman of energy and 
jjrobity. His territory was sold by him shortly af- 
ter he obtained his patent, to Capt. Thomas Wig- 
gin and his associates of Shrewsbury, England. 

* See Hilton's Point Patent at large, Appendix No. 1. 



18 THE FIRST PLANTING 

This patent became for many after yeai'S the 
source of much conflict and litigation. Yet never 
did Hilton, nor those claiming title under him, un- 
dertake to strengthen that title by avei-ring a 
seven years' ])OSsession and actual occupation be- 
fore his patent was issued. 

Positive testimony as to the date of the Hilton's 
Point settlement may, however, be found in a care- 
ful declaration made in 1G54 to the Mass. Generrd 
Court, by John Allen, iSTicholas Shapleigh and 
Thomas Lake, wherein the Hilton's Point I^atent 
is relied upon by the declai-ants as a pi-otection 
against certain alleged encroachments made by the 
Mass. authorities. These three declarants, familiar 
with the whole history of Hilton's Point and inter- 
ested to make out Hilton's title and possession as 
ancient as they could, present the following as the 
first article of their case. "1, that Mi'. Edward 
Hilton was possessed of this land about the year 
1628, which is about 26 years ago." * Edward 
Hilton was then living in the immediate vicinity of 
Great Bay, well and intimately known to all the 
declarants; and the date of his first possession of 
Hilton's Point must have been within the familiar 
knowledge of them all. 

The notion among our historians and antiquaries 
that the Dovei' settlement was contemporaneous 
with that of Pannaway in the spring of 1623, is 

* 1 N. H. Prov. Pap. 157. 



OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 19 

founded wholly and solely, so far as we can dis- 
cover, upon a certain careless statement contained 
in Hubbard's Hist, of New England, written moi-e 
than half a century after the settlement of New 
Hampshire — a loose statement, made upon hearsay, 
in a paragraph (as printed) conspicuous in all re- 
spects for inaccuracy. And worse than all, the 
little ot truth the paragraph of Kev. William Hub- 
bard of Ipswich did contain, has been most gross- 
ly distorted and misunderstood. Hubbard's lan- 
guage is this : "Some merchants and other gen- 
tlemen in the w^est of England * ^ * sent over 
that year (1623) one Mr. David Thomson with Mr. 
Edward Hilton and his brother Mr. William Hilton, 
who had been fishmongers in London, with some 
othei's that came along with them, furnished with 
necessaries for carrying on a plantation there 
(about Piscataqua River.) Possibly others might 
be sent after them in the years following 1624 and 
1625; some of whom first, in probability, seized on 
a place called the Little Harbor on the west side of 
the Piscataqua river, toward oi"'at the mouth there- 
of; the Hiltons, in the meanwdiile, setting up their 
stages higher up the I'iver toward the northwest at 
or about a place since called Dover. But at that 
place called Little Harbor it is supposed was the 
first house set up that was built in those parts."* 
An examination of this statement by Hubbard 

*Hubbard's Hist. pp. 214, 215. 



20 THE FIRST PLANTIN(i 

will satisfy the student that it amounts to this: 
First, that the first house or settlement on the Pis- 
cataqua was made at Little Harbor. Second, that 
the Hiltons set up their stages up the river some- 
time in the 7neanwhUe between 1G23 and the years 
following 1624 and 1625; and IIubl)ard has not said 
nor meant to say that Hilton's settlement was made 
in 1623. Third, that the Hiltons set up their stages 
at or about a place since called Dover. Hubbard 
has not stated nor meant to state that these stages 
were set uj) at Hilton's Point precisely, but only at 
some place about that Point. 

A little consideration will convince us that Hub- 
bard could hardly have intended to say that the 
Hiltons did ever set up stages at Hilt(nis Point; 
and certainly Hilton himself in the preamble to 
his grant of 1630 never made any pretence, as we 
hav^e seen, to having set up any fishing stages 
there. The stages referred to, were large and ex- 
pensive structures, intended for use in the fishing 
husiness. Hilton's Point is situated some six oi- 
seven miles above the mouth of Piscatacpia riv^er 
— a tidal stream of such rapidity that it is often 
impossible for a boat to overcome its current, whik' 
on the other hand the great codfisheries lie several 
miles out to sea beyond the river's mouth. A fish- 
erman leaving Hilton's Point at the very turn of 
the ebb tide, might, perhaps, under favorable cir- 
cumstances, reach the fishing banks in the coui'se 



OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 21 

of four hours; if he intended to return by the next 
flood tide, he would be compelled to turn back 
without casting a hook. If he stayed two or three 
hours to fish, he would not be able to get home the 
same day. Can it be believed that experienced 
fishermen would have selected such a site as Hil- 
ton's Point for a fishing establishment, when as 
good land or better could have been taken up any- 
where at the river's mouth or along the coast? 

Where, indeed, it really was that these fishing 
stages were set up, (if at all,) Hubbard has not 
definitely informed us, nor can we now discover; 
but it hardly seems probable that a site was select- 
ed above the river narrows. Taking the whole 
case together, we may perhaps conclude from Hub- 
bard's statements, if we chose to place any reliance 
whatever upon them, as they stand i^rinted^ that 
the Hiltons sometime between 1623 and 1626 
founded a fishing establishment somewhere up the 
river between Dover and the river's mouth. This 
may be the truth, without conflicting in the least 
with the testimony we have adduced, that the trad- 
ing and agricultural establishment on Hilton's 
Point itself was founded by Edward Hilton in the 
year 1627 or 1628. 

"VVe perceive, therefore, that Hubbard is no au- 
thority whatever in support of the alleged settle- 
ment of Hilton's Point in 1628, and as no other ev- 
idence has been adduced to prove such a settlement 



22 THE rmsT planting 

contemporaneously with that at Pannaway, we may 
justly consider the question at rest, and accord the 
prioi'ity in the first planting of New Hampshire by 
several years to David Thomson and his men at 
Pan naway. Indeed a close scrutiny- of Hubbard's 
statement by the light of other facts will convei't 
his misunderstood narrative into an authority for 
our conclusion. He tells us that the settlement 
■'at 01" about a place since called Dover" was made 
by the two Hiltons, Edward and William. If that 
were so, it could not have been made in the year 
1623, because William is fonnd residing at Ph- 
mouth with his family as late as 1624, and indeed 
is not mentioned as living on the Piscataqua until 
several years later. 

We venture to add, though unnecessary to oui- 
argument, that the time and mannei' of Edward 
Hilton's arrival in the Piscataqua is also very un- 
certain. Hubbard writes that both Edward and 
William came over in company with Thomson in 
1623. That the careless historian made a gross er- 
ror as to William we have just pointed out, and it 
is probable he fell into a similar mistake as to Ed- 
wa7'd. At all events, the Indenture between Thom- 
son and his partners gives no countenance to Hub- 
bard's loose expressions; and not a particle of con- 
temporaneous testimony has been added tending to 
show Edward Hilton's residence at the Piscataqua 
before the year 1628, when he first appears as as- 



OF NEW HA3IPSHIHE. Zo 

sesscd £1 towards the expense of Morton's baiiish- 
nieiit. 

A strong- concin-rent body of testimony wonld, 
indeed, be necessary to satisfy a rational mind, that 
Edward and William Hilton, or Edward alone set- 
tled at Dover Neck as early as 1623. At that pe- , 
riod not a white man dwelt within all the borders 
of New Hampshire, tribes of bloodthirsty "nefan- 
dous" savages i-oamed thi'ongh the pine forests and 
gathered aronnd the falls ol the rivers. Hilton's 
Point, from its close proximity to the Cocheco, 
where large bands of Indians made their homes, 
w^as particnlarly exposed to savage assault. Is it 
credible that Hilton, without any colony to assist 
him, (for, as we have seen, no colony came over to 
Dover Neck until 1628 or 1629,) should have, as 
early as 1623, removed from the succor of all his 
friends, six oi- seven miles from Pannaway, and 
taken up an almost, if not altogether, solitary resi- 
dence in the midst of treacherous and cruel savages; 
when the whole country practically lay open to 
him to go in and occupy where he would ? A wise 
and pi'osperous merchant, as Edward Hilton was, 
a prudent and judicious gentlemen, as he ever af- 
terw^ards proved himself to be, w^ould never, we be- 
lieve, have undertaken an enterprise as unnecessary 
and profitless, as it would have been rash and fool- 
hardy. 

It was some years, we conclude, after the settle- 



24 THE FIRST PLANTING 

ment of Pannaway, whether we conyider the testi- 
mony or weigh the intrinsic probabilities, before 
the pkmtation at Hilton's Point could have been 
begun; and it is much to be regretted, that the an- 
tiquaries and historians of our State should have 
permitted the Legislature to fall into the erroi- of 
incorporating a body of men to erect a monument 
at Dover Neck, '"^in commemoration of the settle- 
ment of the Point in 1623." 



THE PISCmOlIi PiTElTS, 



In the pi-eceding monograph we have sought to 
dispel the obscurity which has so long enveloped 
the very cradle of New Hampshire history. We 
have endeavored to establish that the first English 
settlement wilhin the hmits of that State was made 
by David Thomson and his company in 1G23, at 
Pannaway, Little Harbor, about five years earlier 
than Edward Hilton began his plantation at Hil- 
ton's Point, now called Dover Neck 

Advancing from this starting point only a few 
steps further into the early history of New Hamp- 
shire, the student is again shut in bj^ a dense fog, 
through which for a long time he is compelled to 
grope his uncertain way. Before the year 16o2 is 
passed, he finds himself in the midst of a number 
of patents on the Piscataqua, none of which can he 
clearly make out and define. He pei'ceives long 
and bitter contests between these rival patents, the 
true o-i'ound of which he cannot understand. He 



26 THE PISCATAQL^V PATENTS. 

discovers that at last all these contending paten- 
tees and planters are in some way swept into the 
jurisdiction of Massachnsetts Bay, bat the dexter- 
ons legerdemain by which the annexation was ef- 
fected, entirely escapes his dt^tection. In vain does 
he seek for light in the pages of the Pilgiim or the 
Pnritan historians. That whole confiatei'nity, in- 
deed, avowedly look npon the Piscataqua phmta- 
tions with utter contempt, and waste little or no 
time upon the annals of those "sons of Belial," who 
haunted about the lower part of the river. 

Moreoveiv it happens, as we shall see in the se- 
quel, that it became the policy of the Bay Colony, 
in prosecuting their designs over the Piscataqua, to 
say or write as little as possible on the subject, so 
that in case they should ever be called to account 
for their conduct in the matter, they could not, in 
any event, be condemned out of their own mouths. 

The true story of the Piscataqua Patents has 
thus never been told; and, indeed, until the ivcent 
discovery of important documents in the English 
Archives, bearing on the subject, that ])oi'tion of 
our early histoi"y was incapable of any clear rela- 
tion. 

Let us attempt to dissipate some of the mists, 
w^hich have so long hung over Piscataqua River. 
Let us enquire what these patents really were, what 
was theii" real meaning, what nnist be their true 
construction, what conflicting interests arose under 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. ; 27- 

them ; let us .sketc-li tlie outlines of their history 
down to theii- extinction, and discovei', if possible, 
in ^Yhat wny these patents were at last merged iii-| 
to the Bay Colony. Such an enquiry, in the pres- 
ent state of oui" knowledge, must needs be delicate 
and difficult; nor, in so novel au undertaking- is it 
likely to attain absolute success. Our hopes will 
be fully gratified, if these few pages shall succeed 
in letting in some measure of light upon this ob- 
scure and confused portion of our early history. 

The instrument which has been the (hief cause ^ 
of the confusion and obscurity i-eferred to, was the 
Patent, mentioned in the preceding monogi-aph, 
granted in 1(529-30 by the Grand Council for New 
Euii'land to Edward Milton and his associates — a 
jietty conveyance of a small tract of land around 
Dover ISTeck, but wliich in the course of events 
having been elevated into some ])olitical importance, 
l)layed a leading part, a;- we shall see, in the early 
annals of Xew Hampshire. 

It was during the years 1G2S and 1629, that Mr. . 
Edward Hilton, a member of the ancient and hon- . 
orable Guild of Fishmongers of London, Avith the 
aid of a number of Bristol mei-cliants, put up a few 
cabins at the Point which look his name, and laid 
the feeble foundations of a tradin*)- and lumberin<>- 
l)lantatiou. This occupation was, it seems, unwar- 
lanted by any previous grant of title from the 
Gri'and Council; though probably some agreement 



28 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

or understanding had been arrived at, for the exe- 
cution of a good and sufficient deed of conveyance, 
as soon as the plantation should be fairly under 
way. It was not uncommon for the Grand Coun- 
cil to require from petitioners for land in I^ew 
England, some evidence of efforts alread}^ made 
and expenditures actuall}' incurred towards the 
improvement of the desired territory, before the 
patent was actually executed and delivered. As 
the quitrents on these conveyances were merely 
nominal, the Council could hardly have hit upon a 
better way of testing the sincerity and ability of 
those who solicited from them gratuitous grants for 
the alleged design of founding plantations in the 
New World. 

Edward Hilton and his associates having in 1628 
and 1629 '^transported sundry servants to plant 
upon Hilton's point, now Dover Neck, built some 
houses, planted corn, etc.," and having thus satis- 
factorily shown their intention and ability to carry 
forward the plantation already begun, at length 
received from the Grand Council a conveyance or 
Patent for the> territory they had taken up. This 
Patent was executed March 12, 1629 (old style), 
or according to our present supputation of time, 
March 23, 1630.^ 

The territory conveyed to Hilton and his associ- 
ates by this Patent is bounded and described in the 

* See the Patent in the Apjiondix No. 1. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 29 

instrument, as follows: '^ All that part of the rivei- 
PascataquacJc, called or Icnown hy the naine of We- 
canacohimt or HiltoTi's Point ivith the south side of 
the said river, up to the fall of the river and three 
miles into the maine land by all the breadth afore- 
said.'''' 

We invite particular study into the true intent 
and meaning of this brief description, because of 
the falsification of its terms and the strange distor- 
tion of its meaning, which we believe was subse- 
quently ]3Ut upon the patent by the authorities of 
Massachusetts Bay ; whereby the patent was split 
into two distinct parts, and a large tract of territo- 
ry on the southerly or Rockingham County side 
of the river was, by construction, brought within 
its limits. To the consideration of this subject in 
greater detail, we shall return in the sequel, after 
several other necessary preliminaries have been 
brought to the student's knowledge 

It seems clear to us, that the terms of the Pat- 
ent are intended to bound and limit, not two en- 
tirely separate and disjomed bodies of land, (as 
Massachusetts afterward contended,) but only the 
one contiguous compact territory, on which Hilton 
and his associates had already begun their planta- 
tion. Such, indeed, is the express declaration of 
the preamble to the grant. Beginning at Hilton's 
Point, (now called Dover ^eck— a well-defined 
projection into Piscataqua river,) the boundary 



30 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

line, as we construe the Patent, ran up along the 

southerly side of that river to the lower or (.^uaui- 

pegan Falls— a distance of some seven or eight 

miles — and reached back into the interior country 
' . . . ^ ^■ 

three miles along the entire livei' fiontage; thus 

Embracing a considerable portion of the present 
towns of Dovei", Rollinsford and Durham, and in- 
cluding the falls of the Cocheco and Oyster I'ivers.^ 

Soon after obtaining his Patent, Mr. Edward 
Hilton returned to the Piscata((ua with reinfoice- 
nients and supplies, and settled down at the Point, 
which already bore his name. Formal possession 
or liverij of snziii was given to him July 7, 1()31, 
by Thomas Lewis. 

Hilton's Point, now called Dover Xeck, ui)on 
which Hilton and his men pitched their settlement, 
is, in the language of Dr. Belknap, " a high neck 
of land between the main branch of Pascata- 
qua and Back River, about two miles long and 
half a mile wide, rising along a tine road and de- 
clining on each side like a ship's deck. It com- 
mands an extensive and variegated prospect of the 
rivers, bays, adjacent shores and distant mountains. 
It has often been admired by ti'avellers as an ele- 
gant situation for a city, and by military gentlemen 
for a fortress. "t 



.* See the Sketch Map, infra, wliereon the territoiy within these 
bounds is colored in nd. 

t ?> Belknap, X. H. 14!>. 



THE PISCATAQITA PATENTS. 31 

But on the otliei" hand, the new-come phinters 
soon felt the sore need of meadow hind and pas- 
turajre, not to be found on the sandy Point itself, 
nor in its convenient vicinity within their own 
g-rant. Aci-oss the wide waters to the south, how- 
ever, reposed unoccupied a country- ot virgin beau- 
ty, heavily timbered with primeval foi'ests, and 
fringed all round its watered sides with emerald 
fields, and meadows both salt and fresh. It was 
very natural that the Hilton Point planters should 
soon fall into the eas}^ way of ferrying their flocks 
and herds across the river to graze upon these va- 
cant lands. Before long* they came to mowini*- 
grass and felling timber and planting the fields; 
and then one after another put up dwellings and 
barns and entered into full adverse possession of 
the territorv, now embraced in Xewino-ton and 
Greenland. Legal title to these forests and mead- 
ows, we believe, they had none. In after years, it 
is true, these trespassers undertook to rest their 
title upon some ancient Indian grant, but, as is 
well known, Indian deeds to New^ England lands 
wei'e not in law held to be any better "than the 
scratch of a bear's claw.'' They occupied these 
lands, in the beginning, as racuwn d()miciliu7ti, in 
the absence of any effective oppositioii fi-om the 
true owners. 

Let us then enquire, who trere the real proprie- 
tors of these Rockingham County lands at the time 
the Hilton Point planters trespassed upon them. 



32 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

As a pi'eface to this enquiry, we need to state, 
that in N'ov. 1629, about four months prior to the 
execution of the Hilton Patent, a hirge tract of 
territory, situated in the present State of New 
York around Lake Champlain, had been granted 
by the Grand Council to 8ii' Ferdinando Goi-ges, 
Capt. John Mason and seven other associates.* 
This province was named Lacoyiia, by reason "of 
the great Lakes therein." 

The design of the Laconia adventurers was to 
seize upon and engross to their own profit the I'ich 
peltry traffic of that vast region, then in the hands 
of the French and the Dutch. It was believed, in 
the absence of accurate knowledge of the interior 
country, that Lake Champlain (then called the 
Iroquois) could be reached from the Xew England 
coast by a journey of about 90 miles, and that 
only a narrow portage separated it from the head 
waters of Piscataqua river. Under this delusion, 
the Laconians hii-ed the buildings which had been 
put up seven years before ])y David Thomson at 
the smaller mouth of the Piscataqua, and estab- 
lished there, under command of Capt. Walter 
Neale, a factory or entrepot, as a basis for their 
magnificent designs upon the New York lakes. 
The company of Laconia were in the actual pos- 
session of Pannaway at Little Harbor when Hilt(jn 
and his company sailed up the river to establish 

* Seethe Patent of Laconia, Jenness' Isles of Shoals, 2ncl Ed. p. 180. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 33 

their plantation at Hilton's Point eight miles above. 
And before Hilton's title was ])erfected by livery 
of seizhif Strawberry Bank had begnn to be set- 
tled ; no less than sixty men were employed in the 
comjiany's bnsiness on the Piscataqna,* and a 
|)lantation had been established at T^ewichwannock, 
not far from Qnampegan Falls, and on the oppo- 
site side of the I'iver from Hilton's grant. It seems 
to ns obvious from these considerations, that the 
charaeter and extent of the Hilton patent must 
have been familiarly known and understood by the 
C/ompany of Laconia and the eonsideral)le body of 
men in its employment. 

The Laeonia adventnrei'S ex])ended a great deal 
of time and money in quest of an easy way from 
the Piscataqna to their coveted J5JI Dorado of bea- 
ver and otter skins, but all their efforts miserably 
failed, and after a struggle of some two years, 
their design was finally abandoned. f 

But during these two years' occujiation of Pis- 
cataqna I'ivei", the Laeonian associates had acquired 

* Adams'" Annals of Portsmouth, 18. 

•j- We will add here, as a piece of curious information, that al- 
though the original design of the Laconians to reach Lake Champ- 
lain by ascending the Piscataqua was so soon abandoned, yet t/iiir 
patent of the province of Laconia was never, it seems, surrendered 
nor forfeited, but was considered as vesting in them a valid subsist- 
ing title down almost to the period of our Revolution. Jonathan 
Carver, who visited Lake Champlain iiy-^767, writes in the vvell- 
known account of his travels, as tollows : 

'••A. vast tract of land between the two last mentioned lakes (Lakes 
Champlain and Ontario) was granted in the year 1G:>9 by the Ply- 



34 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

an accurate knowledge of that ret^ion and its many 
advantages for traffic and commerce; and now, 
upon the faihire of their original designs upon La- 
conia, the same body of associates, nine in inuu- 
l)er, resolved to tui'u their future eftbrts towards 
the development of the Piscataqua itself in the 
way ot the fisheries and the lumber trade and of 
such moderate peltry traffic as could be j^rosecuted 
in the vicinity. 

As the Laconia Patent conveyed to the advMi- 
turers no ])oi"lion of Piscataqua I'ivei', nor indeed 
any teiM'itory whatever within the present State of 
New Hampshire, it was their first care to pi-ocure 
a grant of the desired region, or at least so much 
of it as had not been previously conveyed to Ed- 
ward Hilton and his associates. 

Accordingly, the same nine men, who constitu- 

iiiouth company * * * to Sir Ferdinando (iorges and to ( :ij)t. 
John Mason." 

"This immense space was granted by the name of the l'i<)\ inee of 
I^aconia to the aloresaid gentlemen on speciHed conditions and under 
eertain penalties; but none of these amounted in ease of omission in 
the fulfilment of any part ot them t<i forfeiture, a line only eould be 
exacted." 

"On account of the continual wars to wiiich 1lu!se parts have been 
subject from tJieir situation between the seitlem<>nts of the French 
and th(^ Indians, this grant lias l)een suffered to lie dormant by the 
real proprietors. Notwithstanding which, several towns have been 
settled, since the late war, on the borders of I^ake Champlain and 
grants made to different @r)ple by the (jovernor of New Y'ork of 
part of these territories which are now bet.ome annexed to that j)rov- 
ince." (Carver's Travels p 17:).) 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 35 

ted the Company of Laconia, procured from the 
Grand Council a conveyance, dated Xov. 3, 1631, 
(some twenty months hiter than the Hilton Patent,) 
of a considerable territory on both sides of the 
Piscataqua river. This important Patent, entitled 
'Uhe Grant and Confirmation of Pescataway," hith- 
erto unknown to our historians, except from a brief 
and grossly inaccurate abstract in Hubbard's print- 
ed history, was discovered by the writer a few 
years ago among the English Archives, and will 
be found in the Appendix.'^ 

There is not the slightest difficulty in running 
out the boundaries of this "Grant of Pescataway,'' 
as will be apparent from an inspection of our 
Sketch map of the Piscataqua country, on which 
the two river patents are laid down. The river 
called Pascassorle in the description is the same, 
no doubt, now named Lamprey River, which emp- 
ties into the head of Great Bay at New Marlvct. 
By the terms of the Patent, the boundary line, it 
will be seen, ran through the middle of the Bay, 
called Pascaquaciv (now Great Bay) in a westioard 
and southwest ward direction to the bottom or low- 
er falls of the river P-ascassocke. The Lamprey is 
the onl}^ rivei-, which answers to this description. 
Indeed, the original Indian name of the river Avas 
Piscassett;t and that name has been retained by 

* Appendix No. 2. 

t Favmei' and Moore's Col. p. 50. 



36 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

its principal branch, in the form of Piscassic, even 
to the present clay. 

The boundaries of the territory covered by the 
"Grant of Pescataway" began at or near Rye 
Ledge, not far from the present southerly line of 
Rye, and sweeping around the coast into the 
« mouth of Piscataqua river, continued up the river 
to Fox Point, thence to Great Bay and through 
the middle of Great Bay to Lamprey River lower 
falls, and thence across the country about nine 
miles to the point of beginning; together with the 
Isles of Shoals and a strip of land three miles wide 
along the northerly side of the river. 

So much of the Pescataway Grant as lay on the 
southerly side of the river and around Great Bay 
is now embraced in the towns of Portsmouth, Xew- 
ington, Greenland, ISTew Castle and Rye. 

It will be seen, on a comparison of Hilton's Pat- 
ent with the "Grant of Pescataway," that there is 
not the slightest conflict between them, as we have 
laid down the two conveyances. The Pescataway 
Grant expressly mentions and locates the Hilton 
Plantation and carefully excludes it f)'om the con- 
veyance. The two patents are thus entirely con- 
sistent with each other and stand well together. 
Both of them were executed by the same grantor, 
the Grand Council, some of whose most active and 
efficient members were then maintaining a consid- 
erable establishment on the Piscataqua, and were 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 37 

entirely familiar with its topography, as the minute 
accuracy of the description in their patent clearly 
attests. JSTeither ignorance nor mistake can be rea- 
sonably^ imputed to the Grand Council, nor to eith- 
er set of gi-antees in the two river patents. 

We may be moi-ally certain that these patents 
did not conflict at all with each other, and that the 
Hilton Patent was not understood between the par- 
ties to it to cover any portion of the "Pescataway 
Grant." Nor do we believe that any such pretence 
would ever have been set up, but for the appear- 
ance upon the scene of a new Power — the govern- 
ment of Massachusetts Bay. 

The Great Charter of Massachusetts Bay had 
been granted by King Charles I. March 4, 1628-9 
— antedating thus both of the Piscalaqua patents 
as well as Capt. Mason's Patent of the* Province 
of New Hampshire which had been issued Nov. 7, 
1629. In the summer of 1630, Gov. John Win- 
throp with a considerable company of colonists, 
brought the Charter over to New England. It was, 
indeed, a grand resounding Charter, but the extent 
of territory embraced within it was almost ludi- 
crously disproportionate to this large document. 
Its sea-coast hardly stretched to forty miles; and 
more than the half of even that scanty line— to 
wit: from near Salem to the Merrimack — seems to 
have been the property of Capt. John Mason.* 

* Jenness' Orig. Docs. p. 75. Title of Robert Mason. 



38 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

Very naturally therefore, did the Founders of the 
Ba}' Colony begin at once on their arrival to feel 
about for more land and to scan attentively the lan- 
guage of their Charter. On the south they found 
themselves hemmed in by theii* friends, the Ply- 
mouth colony; the west was a wilderness difficult 
of access. It was thus to the north that their 
hearts most earnestly yeai'ued. The same year of 
Winthrop's arrival, the Mass. colouy, it is said, vio- 
lently seized upon Mason's patent of Cape Anne, 
"stretching their bounds three miles to the North- 
wards of Merrimack River, and turned the servants 
and tennants of the said John Mason out of their 
possessions."* 

They next cast their eyes over the Piscataqua 
region, which they particularly coveted. "Because 
ye river o-f Pascataqua is very beneficall for plau- 
tacon," writes George Burdett in 1638, " having 
also an excellent harbour, w^ch may much pfit or 
anoy them in case of warre, therefore they (the 
Massachusetts) endeavour with all their skill &: 
might to obtain the comand thereof. "f 

A plausible pretext for the anuexation of the de- 
sired region w\as found in the somewhat ambiguous 
language of their Charter. By its terms they were 
granted "all the lands which be within the space 
of three English miles to the northward of the 

* Jeniiess' Orig. Docs. p. 75. Title of Robert Mason, 
t Id. p. ol. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 39 

river, called Mei'rymack, or to the norward of any 
and evei-y part thereof." The Massachusetts at 
once contended with great ingenuity, that under 
these terms their northern boundary reached a par- 
allel of latitude drawn three miles above the most 
noi'therly point on the Merrimack river — a con- 
struction which would include Captain Mason's 
Patent of jSTew Hampshire, and all of Maine below 
Clajjboard island in Casco Bay. 

It is here to be repeated that the Charter of Mass. 
Bay passed the seals March 4, 1628-9; thus ante- 
dating Mason's Patent of I*^ew Hampshire as well 
as hot]} the Piscataqua river grants. If the Massa- 
chusetts construction of their Charter should pre- 
vail, then all of the patents on the river would be 
swept away; the whole of that I'cgion would fall 
by prior title into their hands and jurisdiction; 
and neithei' Mason, nor Hilton and his associates, 
nor the grantees of "Pescataway" could have of- 
i'ered auy effectual opposition. 

This ingenious interpretationof the Charter hav- 
ing been hit upon, there appeared as early as 1631 
upon the banks of the Piscataqua, one Ccqjt. Thoin- 
as Wiggm, a stern Puritan and a confidential friend 
of Governor John Winthrop of Mass. Bay. We 
find Wiggin wi'iting from that place to Gov. Win- 
throp in Oct. 1631, persuading the latter to take re- 
venge on a party of Indians for a mui-der commit- 
ted on Walter Bagnall, called Great Wed, at Rich- 



40 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

man's isle. There is an implication in this request, 
that jurisdiction over the offence was in Mass. Bay, 
although Richman's island lies almost as far north 
as Portland harbor. The governor, however, says 
Winthrop, "thought best to sit still awhile."* 

At this time (Oct. 1631) no special grant of the 
lands around Great Bay had been issued; the "grant 
and confirmation of Pescataway" being dated 
in Nov. 1631, in usual course would not reach 
NcAv England until the early spring of 1632. In 
1632, however, upon the arrival of the new Patent 
of "Pescatawa}^," a collision occurred between 
Capt. Wiggin and Capt. Walter ISTeale, the lattei- 
acting in behalf of the Pescataway grantees. Hub- 
bard informs us, that Wiggin, being forbidden by 
Neale "to come upon a certain point of land, that 
lieth in the midway betwixt Dover and Exeter, 
Captain Wiggin intended to have defended his 
right by the sword, but it seems both the litigants 
had so much wit in their anger as to wave the bat- 
tle, each accounting himself to have done very 
manfully in what was threatened; so as in respect 
not of what did^ but what might have fjillen out, 
the place to this day retains the formidable name 
of Bloody Point."t 

Hubbard does not infoi'm us what and whose 
title it was, which Wiggin intended to defend, but 

* 1 Winthrop, 63. 

t Hubbard's Gen. Hist.,p 217. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 41 

as at that time he had no interest whatever in the 
Hilton Patent, even though that Patent could be 
construed to cover Bloody Point, it seems clear 
that he could only have set up as against ISTeale 
that title, which, as we have seen, he had already 
asserted, and which he spent his whole after life in 
maintaining — the title of Mass. Bay under their 
gi-eat Charter of 1628. 

As the construction the Bay Colony put upon 
their charter would, if enfoi'ced, have sw^ept away 
the entire property of all the Piscataqua planters, 
It must have encountered a hot and detei'mined op- 
position from the whole river. The Massachusetts 
perceived that the Piscataqna planters were bitter- 
ly hostile to them in political and religious princi- 
ples, and would on that account be likely to receive 
efficient aid from the old country, in case of an 
open conflict. Again, they mnst have known 
that the real intention of the King was only to 
g'rant them as their northern boundary a strip of 
land three miles wide following the course of the 
Merrimack river. The strip or selvage of that 
breadth, was intended, we snppose, to protect the 
river from the artillery of any adjoining province 
— the range of artillery of that day being usually 
computed at three miles. The Privy Council, as 
the Massachusetts well knew, were inimical to the 
Bay Colony, and would seize with avidity upon the 
slightest transgression of their chartered limits or 



42 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

corporate powers, as a ground for vacating the 
charter itself. 

In these difficulties, the Bay Magistrates deemed 
it prudent to break up and confuse, if |)ossible, the 
solid front of opposition, betoi'e making an open 
attack; and to that end they resolved to get 
into their own hands the entire Hilton Patent, 
and thus extinguish the hostihty of its present pi'o- 
prietors to their schemes and desires. 

Accordingly, after concerting the plan with Gov. 
Winthrop and his assistants Capt. Wiggin shortly 
after his quarrel with Capt. ^eale went out to Eng- 
land in 1632, and forming a company of "honest 
meyi^'' as Winthrop calls them, succeeded, with their 
aid, in purchasing from Hilton and his Bristol asso- 
ciates the entire Hilton Patent, at the price of 
£2150. The purchasers were Lord Say, Lord 
Brook, Sir Richard SaltoustalK Sir Ai-thur Hazle- 
rigg, Mr, Whiting and other men of Shi'ewsbui-y, 
all ot them Puritans and friends to Mass. Bay, who 
had been 'Syrit unto," we are informed, ""by the Gov- 
ernor and Magistrate of Massachusetts, who en- 
couraged them to purchase the said lands of the 
Bristol men, in respect they feared some ill neigh- 
borhood from them."* 

Capt. Wiggin, appointed manager for the new 
company, returned to iS^ew England Avith reinforce- 
ments and supplies, and a ^' godly minister," arriv- 
ing at Salem Oct. 10, 1(533. 

* N. H. Prov. Pap. 157. 



THE PI8CATAQUA PATENTS. 43 

f 

As soon as he had entered into possession of 
the newly purchased territory, he took immediate 
steps, in accordance with the original understand- 
ing, to submit that territory to the jurisdiction of 
Massachusetts. Early in the following month he 
wrote to Gov. Winthrop " that one of his people 
had stabbed another and desired he might be tried 
in the Bay, if the party died. The Governor an- 
swered, that if Pascataquack lay within their limits 
(as it was supposed) they would try him."'^" 

Before the next winter was passed, Capt. Wig- 
gin again wrote to the Governor of Massachusetts, 
offering jurisdiction over crimes committed at the 
river, to the Bay Colony. "The Governor," says 
Winthrop '^and divers of his assistants met and 
conferred about it, but did not think fit to try them 

here."t 

The fact is, the scheme to purchase the Hilton 
Patent and then turn it over to Mass. Bay, had for 
the present utterly failed. Wiggin found it impos- 
sible to deliver his teri-itory according to the bar- 
gain and understanding. 

Intense hostility against their design spi'ang up 
at once among the original Hilton Point planters, 
who were in occupation of the ground. Edward 
Hilton Avas himself a royalist and a churchman, 
and the planters brought over by him during the 

* 1 Wintlu-op, 116. 
t Td. loo. 



44 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

period the patent was in his hands, were naturally 
of the same feather. These men had now taken 
up and improved the lands on Bloody Point and 
around the easterly side of Great Bay in consider- 
able numbers, though without any legal title to 
them whatever. But, as none of the patents of the 
Piscataqua country, not even that of Capt. Mason 
of the Province of New Hampshire, conferred any 
rights of government and jurisdiction, but were 
all ol them simply indentures or deeds of territory, 
it is obvious that there were no courts or tribunals 
on the land, liefore which these squatter rights 
could be called in question; and of course the tri- 
fling value of these little pi-operties would deter 
any resort to the King in Council. The squatters 
upon the Piscataqua thus found their possessory ti- 
tles practically unquestionable, so long as they kept 
aloof from Massachusetts. But on the contrary, if 
Massachusetts were permitted to stretch her boun- 
daries over the river, in her train would come or- 
ganized courts of Law, betore which land titles 
could be brought up for trial. This view must 
have been appalling to most of the planters. These 
squatter planters could produce in Court no instru- 
ments of title to their lands; nor had their posses- 
sion been long enough continued to raise a pre- 
scriptive title. What reasonable hope of protec- 
tion then could they place in a Massachusetts 
Court on the trial of a real action brought by the 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 45 

favored proprietors of the Hilton Patent? In this 
emergency the planters, threatened by a common 
calamity, gathered together for resistance to Capt. 
Wiggin's designs, and with such vigor did they 
carry on the contest, that those designs were for a 
time baffled; and by a sort of petty revolution Wig- 
gin was deposed from his office as Governor, to 
which he had been appointed by the proprietors of 
the Patent, and the people set up an independent 
government among themselves, under the name of 
a Combination. In that year, 1637, Geoi-ge Burdet, 
a staunch churchman, succeeded AYiggin as Gov- 
ernor. In 1638, that inconsistent, unstable charac- 
ter, Capt. John Underbill, having been disfran- 
chised, brought under admonition and banished 
from Massachusetts, came to Dover and was cho- 
sen Governor over the Combination, upon the un- 
derstanding, no doubt, that his principles were hos- 
tile to the Bay. After Capt. Underbill had held 
his office about three years, however, his principles 
or interests in that matter underwent a change. 
Although a new Combination was draAvn up, dated 
Oct. 1640, and was signed by Underbill himself, 
the people soon discovered that he was plotting, 
after all, to bring the Piscataqua under the Mass. 
jurisdiction,'* and following the lead of Thomas 
Larkham, a conformist clergyman, they raised an:- 
other rebellion in the interest of their independence. 

* 1 Winlhrop, 27. 



46 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

The quarrel, embittered by religious dissensions, 
waxed hot and came to open violence. Hanserd 
Knollys, who was the minister of the Underbill 
faction, fulminated a bull of excommunication 
against Larkham; and in return Larkham knocked 
off Knowles' hat. Captain Underbill and Knowles 
flew to arms, expecting help from the Bay, and "so 
marched out to meet Mr. Larkham, one carrying a 
Bible on a halberd for an ensign — Mr. Knowles 
])eing armed with a pistol. When Mr. Larkham 
saw them thus jDrovided, he withdrew his party 
and went no farther, but sent down to Mr. Wil- 
liams, Governor of Strawberry Bank for assist- 
ance, who came up with a company of armed men, 
and beset Mr. Knowles' house, where Capt. Un- 
derbill was, kept a guard upon him night and day 
till they could call a court, and then, Mr. Williams 
sitting as judge, they found Underbill and his com- 
pany guilty of a riot and set great fines on them 
and ordered him and some others out of the Plan- 
tation."* 

During the long continuance of these broils and 
dissensions, Massachusetts still hesitated to seize 
violently upon the Piscataqua. They feared the 
opposition of the planters under the river patents, 
to which we have already referred. They dreaded 
the bitter hostility of the numerous persons who 
had been banished from the Bay on account of 

* Hubbard, 363. 



THE PISCATAQITA PATENTS. 47 

their Aiitinomian principles, and taken refuge on 
the Piscataqua; they feared, perhaps, the vengeance 
of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and his grantees, whose 
territories in Maine would also be absorbed by the 
Mass. construction of their charter. But the Bay 
magistrates never permitted their claim over the 
Piscataqua to fall into oblivion. In 1636, for in- 
stance, Gov. Winthrop wrote to Dover, that if the 
latter dared to receive any persons that had been 
"cast out" from the Bay, it would be taken ill, and 
threatening them, that if such exiles were received, 
"they should survey their utmost limits and make 
use of them."* 

But now at last, in 1640, amidst the turmoils and 
bitter quarrels among the inhabitants, Massachu- 
setts saw her long awaited opportunity to spread 
her jurisdiction over the Piscataqua. The Compa- 
ny of Laconia had long since broken up; the 
grantees of Pescataway had nearly all of them 
withdrawn from turther interest in the country; 
Capt. John Mason, the patentee of New Hamp- 
shire, had died in 1635, leaving that Province to an 
infant grandson; and all fear of the royal inter- 
ference was dispelled amid the fast growing dis- 
sensions in the old country. Again the planters 
on the upper Piscataqua were, as we have seen, 
torn and paralyzed by civil and religious dissen- 
sions ; and those on the lower plantation, who since 

* 1 Winthrop, 276. 



48 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

Mason's death had laid claim to the ownership of 
the lands on which they resided, though without 
any legal title, and now lived in terror of Mason's 
heir, even they, though antipodal in every senti- 
ment to the Bay Puritans, were inclined to seek pro- 
tection for their property from the strong ai-m of 
the Massaehnsetts. 

In this propitious juncture of affairs, Massachu- 
setts sent forward to the Piscataqua the famous 
Hugh Peters, with two others, 'Ho understand the 
minds of the people, to reconcile some differences 
between them and to prepare them."^ Peters 
spent a considerable time on the rivei*, and npon 
his return in the spring of 1641, reported to Gov. 
Winthrop, that the Piscataqua people were, in his 
own words, "ripe for our Government, as will ap- 
pear by the note I have sent you. They grone for 
Government and Gospel all over that side of the 
Country. Alas! poore bleeding soules."f 

The precise methods used in preparing the \)qo- 
ple foi- the Puritan annexation have never been 
fully disclosed. Edward Hilton's assent was pur- 
chased by a covenant from the Massachusetts, that 
his estate should be ever after exempt from county 
rates. J Gov. Francis Williams of the lower plan- 
tation was secured for the measure, writes Peters, 

* 2 AVinthi-op, 38. 

t 6 Mass. Hist. Col. (4th ser.) 108. 

X Mass. Archives, vol. 100, p. 133. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 49 

but the manner is not revealed. The chief induce- 
ment, however, held out to the population at large, 
seems to have been the promise of the Bay Colo- 
ny, that they should --enjoy all such lawfuU liberties 
of fishing, planting felling timber as formerly 
they have enjoyed in the said ryver."* 

The genertil propositions having been settled 
upon, a committee was appointed on the part of 
the Piscataqua planters to come to au agreement 
with the agents of the Massachusetts uj^on all the 
various terms of the annexation. Such an agree- 
ment was soon ai'rived at, and thus at last the en- 
tire Piscataqua region passed in 1641, under the 
jurisdiction of Mass. Bay. 

The formalities adopted in perfecting the trans- 
action were, first to procure from the then proprie- 
tors an absolute conveyance to the Massachusetts 
Colony of the jurisdiction over the Hilton Patent. 
This conve3'ance was made June 14, 1641, and ex- 
ecuted by George Willis, gent, and others in be- 
half of the rest of the patentees ;t and was followed 
the next October by an Act of the Mass. Gen. 
Court, accepting and declaring "the ryver Pascat- 
aquack" to be within the jurisdiction of the Massa- 
chusetts. J 

It is now, in 1641, that we first hear of the 

* 1 N. H. Prov. Pap. 159. 

t See the Instrument, Appendix No. 3. 

J Appendix Jso. 4. 



50 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

Strange distorted construction of the Hilton Patent, 
which ever afterwards seems to have prevailed. 

It will be remembered that the territor}^, really 
covered by the Hilton Patent, was, if oui- views 
are correct, only that small portion of the Piscat- 
aqua, extending from Dover Point to Quampegan 
falls and three miles back into the country. But 
such a narrow construction was by no means suf- 
ficient foi' Massachusetts, if the submission of that 
patent was to be relied on as a justification for 
their seizure of the entire river. It became nec- 
essary to seek some widely different construction 
from ours, in order to stretch the patent over the 
lands on the opposite side of the river down to its 
mouth. The Massachusetts and the patentees of 
the Hilton Patent easily found means to make 
such a construction in a slight ambiguity of its 
terms, to explain which we must invite a moment's 
careful attention to the topography of the country. 

The Piscataqua river, taking its rise from the 
Wakefield ponds, descends in a southeasterly 
course and passes Hilton's Point (now Dover 
Point) on the lower or easterly side. At this 
prominent neck it meets a large body of water 
coming down at ebb tide from the westward, and 
then the two flow on together to the ocean, about 
seven miles below. As one ascends this large 
western body of water from Dover I^eck, he reach- 
es, about a mile above it, a prominent Point, now 



THE PISOATAQITA PATENT^. 51 

called Fox Point — so named, according to tradi- 
tion, from the circnmstance that, in olden times, 
when the conntrj-side was np for a fox hunt, it 
was the custom to beat over a considerable extent 
of the neighboring cover and drive the game out 
upon this sharp promontoiy, from whence, as a fox 
never takes the water, there was no escape. At 
Fox Point, the river turns sharp about, at an 
acute angle, and ascending in a southerly direc- 
tion expands into a lake, now called Great Bay, 
about four miles wide at its upper end. Great 
Bay is a tidal lake, not at all dependent upon 
the Piscataqua for its waters. At high tide, when 
this large basin is filled by the sea, the prospect 
over its pellucid surface, framed all ai'ound with 
green meadows and waving grain and noble woods, 
is truly enchanting. But when the tide is out, a 
vast bed of black ooze is exposed to view, traversed 
here and there by narrow canals, bearing the scan- 
ty waters of the several small sti'eams, which emp- 
ty into this great lagune. One of the largest of 
these streams, coming from the south and emptying 
into the upper extremity of this lagune, is now 
called Exeter river, and some five miles above its 
mouth are the Squamscott Falls 

Now the Hilton Patent, if we recall its terms, 
conveyed the Point itself, "with the south side of 
said river [Piscataqua] up to the falls of the rivei* 
and three miles into the mainland by all the breadth 
aforesaid." 



iyJi THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

Why might not the words, "the south side of 
said river," reasoned the Bay authorities, appropri- 
ately designate the line drawn from the mouth of 
the river up to Fox Point and thence around Lit- 
tle and Great Bays to Squamscott river, and thence 
up that river (now called Exeter river) to the falls?* 
Great Bay and Exeter river might be made to pass 
as the Piscataqua; and Squamscott falls would an- 
swer well enough for the falls referred to in the 
description. At all events there was no power on 
the river, as we have before stated, to dispute what 
ever construction the Massachusetts chose to put 
upon the instrument Accordingly, the construc- 
tion we have mentioned was adopted and enacted 
into a law by Mass. Gen. Court, in June 1(341, and 
made a part of the very instrument of submission, 
by which the Hilton Patent was put under theii" 
jurisdiction. 

The language of the preamble to that ccnven- 
tion,t was as follows: "Whereas some Lords, 
Knights, gentlemen, and others, did ]nn-chase of 
Mr. Edward Hilton and some merchants of Bristol, 
two patents, one called Wecohannet or Hilton's 
point, commonly called or known by the name of 
Dover or ]N^ortham, the other pattent, set forth by 
the name of the south part of the ryver of Pascata- 
quack; beginning at the sea-side or near thereabouts 

* See the Sketch Map . 
t See Appendix, No. 3. 



THE PISCATAQLTA PATENTS. DO 

& coming round the said land by the river unto the 
falls of Squamscott as more fully appears by the 
said grant, &e." Then follows a concession to the 
Mass. government, of jurisdiction over all the said 
territory, "Provided always," continues the instru- 
ment, "& it is hereby declared that one of the said 
patents, that is to say, that on the south side of the 
ryver of Pascataquack & in the other pattent one 
third part of the land with all improved land in the 
said pattent to the Lords and gentlemen & other 
owners shall be & remain unto them, their heirs 
and assigns forever as their proper right and as 
having true interest therein, saving the interest 
of jurisdiction to the Massachusetts." "And this 
honored Court of the Massachusetts hearby prom- 
ise to be helpful to the maintenance of the right of 
the Patentees in both the said Pattents in all the 
legal courses in any part of their jurisdiction."* 

* Apijendix, No. 3. 

The preamble, it will be noted, recites that the Lords, &c., had 
pui'chased ot Edward Hilton two patents, the one called Hilton's 
Point oi" Dover patent; the other "set forth by the name of the south 
part of the ryver Pascataquack, &c.'" Some of our ablest antiquari- 
ans have charged the Massachusetts with having designed by this 
phraseology to raise a false belief in the public mind, that the Hil- 
ton Point or Dover Patent was a separate and distinct instrument from 
that which conveyed the south side of the river, on which latter, about 
this time they conferred the name ot the Bloody Point Patent or more 
frequently, the Squamscott Patent. We think injustice has been done 
in this matter, from not attending with sufficient care to the meaning 
of the word Patent, as used in those days. That word was employed 
to designate the territory granted as well as the instrument of convey- 



54 THE PISCATAQUA PATEXTS. 

Now, we enquire, does the Hilton grant purport 
to begin "at the sea-side or near thereabout," as 
the Gen. Court has enacted in 1641? Does it spec- 
ify the " Falls of Quamscott" as the upper limit of 
the grant? Does it describe the boundary as 
"coming round the said land by the river," as the 
Mass. authorities have declared? We find no such 
language nor any such meaning in the Hilton 
Patent. 

Indeed, it may well be doubted whether at the 
the time the Hilton Patent was granted, the name 
Piscataqua was ever applied by the English or the 

ance. Thus Dover Patent meant that jjortion of the lands (conveyed 
by the Hilton Patent lying on the Dover side of the river; so, 
Bloody Point or Squaniseott Patent designated the territory, con- 
strued to be covered by the Hilton Patent, which lay on the Squani- 
seott side of the river. Indeed the land embraced within the present 
town of Stratham was called Squamscott Patent, until the incorpora- 
tion of the town in 1715. (9 X. H. Prov. Pap. 778.) It was natural 
and convenient, when a Grand Council grant covered two distinct 
parcels of territory, that these parcels should take distinct names. 
The "Grant and Confirmation ot Pescataway,'' for instance, embrac- 
ing as it did lands on both sides ot the river, for convenience was 
split into two distinct portions in common parlance, and that portion 
which lay on the southerly side of the river went by the name of the 
Great House Patent or twenty thousand acre Patent. There is no de- 
sign in the preamble, above quoted, to convey a false impression 
that the titles to the Dover and the Squamscott Patents were founded 
upon two separate and distinct instruments of conveyance ; but, on 
the contrai'y, the preamble expressly recites that both these tracts 
were bought from Edward Hilton, who, as was well known, was 
proprietor, with his associates, of only one Patent, though about this 
time it took distinct names for the two divisions for convenience of 
designation. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 55 

Indians to the Exeter Kiver, on which the Sqnam- 
scott falls are situated.* The Patent of ISTew 
Hampshire, for instance, issued to Mason in 1G29, 
applies the name Piscataqua to the main stream, 
which comes down over Quampegan falls. So also 
the *"■ Grant of Pescataway" in 1631 uses that term 
in the same sense. 

* The Indian name of our noble river was, as nearly as it can be 
expressed by English letters, Paskataquauke — or otherwise Puskdta- 
fpiayh — the last syllable being pronounced with a guttural sound and 
H forcible expulsion of the breath, not capable of representation by 
our letters, but closely resembling the sounds of the Gaelic or some 
of the Oriental tongues. This syllable quauke or quagh is clearly 
the Indian word auke signifying a place or locality — a word found 
scattered abundantly all over the Abenaki country, in combination 
Mith various descriptive prefixes. The prefix Pa-ska.ta, as the Indi- 
ans seem to divide the word, (with a strong accent upon the lastsvl- 
lable,) we have recently been led to believe signifies a branch, divi- 
sio7i, separaHon. 

Some fifteen years ago. as we are informed by Rev. Dr. Alonzo H. 
Quint ot Dover, there happened to be a small party encamped at Do- 
ver Point, one of whom was then an Indian undergraduate in col- 
lege, or recently graduated. Elder Samuel Sherburn, of Barrington, 
was there at the same time, engaged in the melancholy search for the 
body of his son, who had been lost oft" a gundaloxo at Boiling Rock. 
One day Elder S. asked the educated Indian the meaning of the 
name "Piscataqua." The Indian at once held up three extended fin- 
gers and said, "you see that? well, three rivers make one," referring 
of course to the fact that the two main branches (jf the Piscataqua 
and the Bellamy or Back river, all meet together at Dover Point. 

A few days after receiving this information from Dr. Quint, the 
writer chanced to meet on the steamboat that plies between the 
Shoals and Portsmouth, two Oldtown Indians on their return to the 
Penobscot. They were both men of middle age, apparently intelli- 
gent, and could converse, though with some difficulty, in English. 
On my enquiry of them as to the signification of "Piscataqua'' 



56 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS, 

Looking again carefully at the Mass. legislative 
construction of the Hilton Patent, we are curi- 
ous to know what has become of the twenty-five 
square miles oi* thereabouts, really granted l)y that 
instrument, as we understand it. We find its en- 
tire rear boundaries carried away; nothing is left of 
the territory except what might pass under the two 



(which they pronounced Pa-skata-quauke,) their answer was 
prom2?t and unpremeditated. Holding up their hands and extending 
two or three fingers, just as had been done by the Indian at Do^-er 
Point, they said Pa-skata meant a branch or division of the river 
into two or more parts — the whole word Paskataquauke meaning a 
place where boats and canoes ascending the river together from its 
mouth were compelled to separate according to their several destina- 
tions. Since that interview, the writer has conversed, on the same 
subject, with another jjarty of Indians encamped for the summer at 
the Farragut House, Rye Beach. Their translation of the word Piscat- 
aqua was the same as above given. And that definition is also con- 
firmed by Thoreau, who informs us in his "JNIaine Woods '" on the 
authority of an Abnaki Indian, that Piscataquis, the name of a river 
in that State which empties into the Penobscot above Bangor, signi- 
fies "■branch of a river,'''' in the Abnaki dialect. 

It will be remembered that some of the permanent settlements of 
the Indians were at the falls of Squamscott, Piscassocke (Lamprey) 
and Shanhassick, (Oyster river,) the way to which lay up the tvesiem 
branch of the Piscataqua waters, and other settlements laj' at Nee- 
ineek-ivan-auke (my ivigioam j^lace), access to which was up the east- 
ern or main branch of the river. The water course to the Indian hab- 
itations at Cochecho falls and along Bellamy or Back river, lay on the 
north and the north-west sides of the . ame Hilton's Point. That 
Point was thus to the Indians the most important and most striking 
natural object on the river. From the convenience of access to this 
conspicuous promontory for all the river Indians, it must always, we 
think, have been the chosen scene for the gathering of all tlie tribes, 
for their po,wwows and their war-dances, and their green corn-dan- 
ces and their general assemblies for purposes of war or the chase. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 57 

words "Hilton's Point" — at the utmost a few acres 
of barren ground, quite inadequate to the purposes 
of a trading and lumbering plantation such as Hil- 
ton intended to establish.* 

Another serious consequence of this construc- 
tion, if cari'ied out, would have been the confisca- 
tion of almost the entire peninsula on the south 
side of the river, granted in 1631 to the nine 

And it was also tho place where the Indians of the various villages 
on returning to their homes branched off from each other and pad- 
dled their canoes up the pellucid streams to their several wigwams. 

Whether the native tribes had any general name for the whole riv- 
er does not as yet appear. Pi'obably not, if we are to reason by 
analogy from their usual custom in similar cases. The word Pas- 
caf/iquauke designated the branching of the river at Dover Point, 
and if we may be permitted to go a little way further into these du- 
bious speculations, we infer from the Indian names above Dover 
Point that the branch of the great river particularly designated by 
that title was the westerly branch which reaches up to Fox Point 
and thence through Great Bay to Lamprey river. Our inference is 
drawn from the Indian names of these latter bodies of water. Great 
Bay was called by them Pasaiquack, and Lamprey river bore the 
name of Paacassocke, both ot which words are but slight modifica- 
tions of Pat^cataquauke. The easterly or main branch of the inver 
from Hilton Point to the Cochecho was called by them the Winnaka- 
hannet; above the Cochecho to the Great Falls it was named Ne- 
laichwannock. 

It was, we suppose, by the English that the word Piscataqua, ap- 
plied by the aborigines only to the branching of the stream at Do- 
ver Point, was first used to designate the entire river from its source 
in the Wakefield ponds to its mouth. 

* The Point must be carefully distinguished from the Neck. The 
former name as appears from Dover Records, we are informed by 
Dr. Quint, was always confined between the very end of the prom- 
ontory and a low huckleberry swamp, a short distance in the rear. 



58 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

Laconia adventurers. The plantation at Little 
Harbor, all the buildings, lands and improvements 
at Great Island and Strawberry Bank, the result 
of large expenditures of money and ten years oS 
labor and hai'dship, would have passed into the 
hands of the pi-oprietors of the Hilton Patent, 
without the slightest compensation. 

The Mass. construction of that Patent was, 
however, never fully carried out, as we shall see in 
the sequel. The chief purpose of that constiuc- 
tion was to furnish the Bay Colony with such 
a pretext of jurisdiction over the ]N^ew Hamj)shire 
plantations, as, in combination with the ambiguous 
terms of their own chailer, might justify or excuse 
the advance of their northern limits to tht^ l);H!ksof 
the Piscataqua. A few preliminaries having then 
been arranged, such as conferences with the in- 
habitants and the j)rocurement of signatures to pe- 
titions for union w^ith the Massachusetts, the lattei- 
colony, in Oct. 1641, took all the south Piscataqua 
plantations into their government, and i-etained 
them for nearly fort}^ years, until, in 1679, ]N"ew 
Ilampshire was reclaimed from the Massachusetts 
by the King, and erected into a Royal Pi'ovince. 

On finally draughting the Statute of annexation, 
the question arose for determination, whether 
the Piscataqua should be taken into the Bay 
jurisdiction upon the voluntary suhmission of 
the planters and patentees of the Hilton Patent; 



THE PISOATAQUA PATENTS. 59 

or whether jurisdiction over that region should 
be assumed, as being ivitJilii the Massachusetts 
hounds.^ Feehng, we conjecture, that their title to 
the river under the Hilton patent, just submitted 
to their jurisdiction, was at least questionable, if 
not clearly worthless, the sagacious governuient 
of the Bay resolved, now that opposition was dis- 
armed, to rest theii" right to the Piscataqua upon 
the vigor of their own charter. This position was 
highly advantageous for the Massachusetts, as it 
was already meditated to advance their chartered 
limits across the Piscataqua far north into the 
Province of Maine, upon the strength of that same 
construction of their charter. Accoi'dingly, the 
Act of Annexation, consummated Oct. 9, IG^tl, 
making no mention whatever of the Hilton Patent, 
nor of the sui'render of jurisdiction over it by its 
proprietors, nor of the voluntary submission of the 
people, though by these means only had the Mas- 
sachusetts got the control of the river, now, in the 
preamble, rests the Massachusetts title upon the 
sole and simple declaration, that the annexed terri- 
tory lay within the original chartered limits of the 
Bay Colony ;f and it is thereupon enacted 'Hhat 
from thenceforth the said people inhabiting there 
(on the rivei- Pascatiiquack) are and shall be ac- 
cepted and reputed under the Government of the 

* 2 Winthrop, 42. 
t Appendix, No. \. 



60 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

Massachusetts as the rest of the inhabitants within 
the said jnrisdiction are."* 

N^ow that the jurisdiction of the Bay Colony 
had, in the way we have described, been securely 
extended over the long coveted Piscataqua, the 
Massachusetts had little or no further interest in 
the river patents, and no doubt would gladly have 
withdrawn from any fuither intermeddling in the 
matter. But difficulties and injustices of many 
sorts soon sprang up all over the annexed territo- 
ry, which long disturbed the quiet of the new Gov- 

* By the terms ot this statute ot annexation of Oct, 1641, certain 
pri\"ileges were guaranteed to the Piscataqua people, as an induce- 
ment, no doubt, to their yielding to Mass. jurisdiction. One of these 
was that "the inhabitants there are allowed to send two deputies 
from the whole ryver to the Court at Boston." This article was one 
of prime importance to the Piscataqua people, and flattered them 
with the hope that under its provisions they were really to secure a 
representation in the Gen. Court at Boston. This hope proved quite 
delusive as to the planters of the lower Piscataqua. The Act of Un- 
ion undoubtedly granted them a right to send a deputy to General 
Court, but the laws of Massachusetts, it was found, rejected all dep- 
uties except freemen of their colony and members of the Congrega- 
tional church in good standing. Now, as there was not tor some 
years after the annexation any congregational church gathered "in 
a church way"' at Strawberry Bank or Great Island, there were no 
suitable deputies to be found on the lower river. (1 N. H. Prov. Pap. 
167.) Those benighted people succeeded in finding among them "a 
godly man" from Massachusetts, named James Parker, and him they 
deputed to Gen. Court in 1642 and 1643. In 1644, they sent Mr. 
Stephen Winthrop ; but with the exception of these three years, no 
deputy came from the lower Piscataqua until the year 1653 (Id. 
367) ; by which time the control ol that region had fallen entirely 
and absolutely into the hands of the Puritan friends of Massachusets. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 61 

ernment. Only a slight outline of these feuds and 
contentions, however, will the general subject oi 
this paper permit us to present here. 

The inhabitants of Bloody Point in particular, 
who had formerly crossed the rivei" from Dover, as 
before stated, now found themselves in danger of 
being stripped of their farms. Under the Mass. 
contract with the owners of the Hilton or Squam- 
scott patent, the latter's title to the whole of these 
lands was acknowledged and warranted by Act of 
Gen. Court, and more than this, upon the laying 
out of the limits of Dover in 16^2, it would seem 
that the whole of Bloody Point was excluded out 
of Dover township, so that these now isolated 
planters had neither title to their farms, nor the 
protection of any organized town govei'ument, nor 
any rights in the town common lands. In these 
straits they applied earnestly to the General Court 
for relief, and the latter, whose favor to the propri- 
etors of the Squamscott Patent was fast fading 
away, granted their prayer, and in 1643, an Act 
was passed, that "all the marsh and meadow 
grounds lying against the great bay or Strawber- 
ry Bank side shall belong to the town of Dover, 
together with 400 acres of upland ground adjoin- 
ing or lying nere to the said meadow."'^ This Act 
was passed without the consent and against the 
protests of the proprietors of the Hilton Patent.f 

* 1 N. II, Prov. Pap. p. 172. 
t Id. 158. 



62 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

The following year (1644) the Mass. Gen. Court 
granted to the township of Dover the entire neck 
of land, known as Bloody Point, bounded on the 
southward by a line drawn from Canney's creek to 
Hogstie Cove.* (See Sketch Map.) This latter 
grant, like the former, was made, it would seem, in 
disregard of the rights of the owners of the Hil- 
ton Patent, cowards whom, now that the jui'isdic- 
tion of Massachusetts had become firmly fixed over 
the Piscataqua, the friendship of the latter had 
sensibly cooled. 

So, too, the inhabitants of Strawberry Bank, 
though by the Act of 1641 all their estates were 
liable to seizure by the proprietors of the Hilton, 
or then more generally called Squamscott Patent, 
manfully struggled against that Patent and defied 
Capt. Wiggins 'Ho bring his Pattent to this pres- 
ent Court. "t And some of the Dover people, even 
after the considerable concessions above mentioned 
had been made them, maintained a hostile spirit to 
the Hilton Patent, as it had been construed, declar- 
ing in their Petition of 1654, that this "Patent wee 
conceive, (under favor) will be made voyde if it 
be well looked into. "J 

Meantime, in the twenty years and upwards since 
the Puritan Lords and gentry of Shrewsbury had 

* 1 N. H. Prov. Pap. 175. 

t Id. 207. 
t Id 213. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 63 

purchased the Hilton Patent for the convenience of 
Mass, Bay, its ownership had in various ways 
passed mostly into the hands of other proprietors, 
some of whom were by no means friendly to that 
colony. The property had been originally divided 
into twenty-five shares of one hundred pounds each, 
which shares passed from hand to hand by bills ot 
sale, many of which are still to be found on record. 
At the period to which we have now arrived, from 
1650 to 1656, the Hilton Patent had thus come to 
he largely owned in various proportions by a con- 
siderable number of N^ew England persons, among 
whom were the Quaker, ISTicholas Shapleigh, Ed- 
ward Colcord, a man subsequently convicted by 
the Massachusetts "of many notable misdemeanors 
and crimes,"* and others perhaps of similar stripe. 
On the other hand, the lower plantation on the 
Piscataqua had, since 16-11, undergone a complete 
transformation, civil and religious. A party of 
strict Puritans had, by the aid of the Massachu- 
setts, gotten possession of that plantation, and un- 
der the system of the Bay Colony were enabled to 
]3erpetuate theii* power at their own pleasure, and 
to allot among themselves — some eight or ten in 
number — nearl}^ all the valuable common lands 
within their limits. If we may trust the language 
of a petition to the King made in 1665, by some 
of the non-freemen of Portsmouth, "five or six of 

* 1 N. H. Prov. Pap. 238. 



64 THE PISCATAQUA PATE:N^TS. 

the ritchest men of this parish ruled, swaied and 
ordered all offices both civil & military at their 
pleasure." These men, continues the petition, 
"have kept us under hard servitude, and denyed 
us in our publique meeting the Common prayer 
Sacramts and decent burial of the dead," "and not 
only so, but have also denied us the benefit of free- 
men ^ ^ and likewise at the election of offi- 
cers, the aforesaid party * * have always kept 
themselves in offices for the manageing of the gifts 
of lands & setling them * * and have engrossed 
the greatest part of the lands within the precincts 
and limits of this plantation into their own hands, 
and other honest men, that have been here a con- 
siderable time have no lands at all given to them."'" 

In this posture of affairs, it was not to be ex- 
pected that the shareholders of the Hilton Patent 
should receive any further special favor from Mas- 
sachusetts, as against the Piscataqua settlements. 
For a considerable time, indeed, the General Court 
declined, though urgently petitioned, even to order 
a partition of the Patent, but at last, in 1655, the 
Court partially yielded and appointed a Committee 
"to make a just division of the (patent) of Squam- 
scott only & that which hath reference to Dover 
be resjnted untill another time."t 

The Report of this Committee,J made the fol- 

* Jenness' Orig. Does. rel. to N. Hamj). p. 48, 
t 1 N. H. Prov. Pap. 217. 
t Id. 221. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 65 

lowing year, in view, no donbt, of the impolicy if 
not impossibility of making a partition of all the 
territory declared to be within the Patent by the 
Act of 1641, proceeds npon the idea of effecting a 
compromise among the now numerous and discor- 
dant interests. 

In the preamble, the Committee first lay down 
the extent of territory to be divided. They do not 
pretend to quote the exact language of the Pat- 
ent, but content themselves with putting their own 
construction upon it. "TVhen we came to peruse 
the Pattent," they say, "we found it to extend for 
the length of it from the lower part of the river 
Pascataquack on the south side of said river unto 
the falls of said I'iver at Exeter and for breadth 
along the said river 3 miles from the falls of the 
head-line for the breadth of it." 

The last clause of this description is, as it stands, 
uttci-ly unintelligible. The obscurity seems to 
have been caused by the negligence of the trans- 
<-i'iber of the Report. It so happened that in our 
reseai-chcs among the original Mass. Records, we 
came upon another report of the Partition Com- 
mittee made about a week before the Report final- 
ly adopted. As this first Report, not having been 
acted upon, was not printed among the Mass. Rec- 
ords, it has escaped the notice of our antiquaries. 
The preamble to the first Report,* which was obvi- 

* The most striking ditFerence between these two Reports consists 



66 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

oiisly intended to be copied into the second, sup- 
plies the words (here printed in itaUcs) which are 
necessary to give that second Report a meaning. 
Its language is this: "when we came to peruse the 
patent, we found itt to extend for the length of itt 
from the lower pait of the river Pascataquack on 
the south side of the said river unto the falls of 
said river at Exeter; and for breadth along the 
said river three viiles into tlie land, upon ii^Mch wee 
measured three miles from the falls for the Head 
Lyne for the breadth of itt."* 

On comparing the preamble to this final Report 
(as corrected) with that of the Act of Submission 
of 1641, we find a material variance between them. 
By the former, the Hilton patent only reached 
down to the lower part of the river, while by the 
Act of Submission it is declared to begin ''at the 
sea-side or thereabouts P In their Report, the Com- 
mittee fix upon Trolling rock as the lower bounda- 
ry of the patent on the river, and in this easy and 
arbitrary manner, the entire settlements below 
Boiling Rock were excluded from the patent. 

in this, that by the fii"st nothing whatever is allowed out of the 
Patent to the Dover people or to the planters upon Bloody Point, 
though considex-able tracts had been granted them in 1643 and lG-44 
by Act of Gen Court. We sup^wse it vv^as this strange or crafty 
omission which roused the people of Dover and Bloody Point (then 
a part of Dover) to active resistance to the adoption of the Commit- 
tee's first Report ; and led to the amended Report, which was finally 
approved. 

* 3 Mass. Archives, 452. 



THE PISOATAQUA PATENTS. 67 

The committee, in their final Report, al8o except 
out of the patent all the extensive lands grant- 
ed to and incorporated with Dover b}' the 
Mass. Gen. Conrt, together with a hundred and 
filty acres added; and they also restrain the limits 
of the patent along the easterly part of Great Bay 
to a depth of one and a half miles into the land, 
instead of the three miles allowed by the Act of 
164:1; on the gronnd, they say, that "the land was 
so narrow to the seaward, that we can allow no 
more according to the intent of the Patent as we 
understand it." It seems plain that the Commit- 
tee in making their partition, acted and assumed 
to act not as judicial officers, but rather in a spirit 
of compromise, in the hope of composing the long- 
standing dissensions among the Piscataqua planters. 

Their scheme was to satisfy as far as possible, or 
at least to appease all the conflicting interests in 
the Squamscott territory. To the lower plantation 
they granted all the land below Boiling Rock; to 
Dover they confirmed the territory on Bloody 
Point and around Great Bay, which had been 
granted to the town in previous years; to the pro- 
prietors of the Hilton or Squamscott Patent they 
reserved only the remainder, which they then pro- 
ceeded to divide up among the three classes oi* 
ranks of these proprietors in the general manner, 
as we understand the Report, designated upon the 
accompanying Sketch Map. The portion colored 



68 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

upon the map in yelloio was assigned to the 
"Shrewsbury men;" that in hhie was laid off to 
Capt. Thomas Wiggin and his partners;* that in 
red, which had long since been granted by Massa- 
chusetts to Dover, was confirmed to that township, 
and that colored green was allotted to Gai'diner, 
Lake, and their partners.f 

The partition thus made of the Hilton or Squam- 

* It is curious to notice, on comparing the northern boundary of 
Capt. Wiggiu's portion with the southerly bound ot the "Pescataway 
Grant," how nearly, if not precisely, they correspond. The Great 
Bay would, of course, constitute the natural northern bound of the 
second division granted to Wiggin and his partners, and it isdifiieult 
to understand why the committee adopted the limit laid down in their 
Report, unless they were acquainted with the bounds of the Pescata- 
way Grant, and desired to keep the Captain's own lands out ot 
harm's way against any contingencies. 

t The various localities marked upon our sketch map, indispensa- 
ble to any clear understanding of our subject, have been ascertained 
from documents, records, statutes, &c. with as much of care and 
pains as the dilHculty of the research required. 

Canney\s Creek or Cove (erroneously called Kinges Creek in the 
printed Report of partition) lay on the Long Reach ot the Piscataqua, 
about half a mile above Boiling rock, and next below the lower 
bound ot the ancient Rawlins favui, still in possession of that family. 
Its exact location appears from the terms of the grant made by Ports- 
mouth in 1661, to Capt. Brian Pendleton of a tract of 240 acres of 
land "next to James Rawlins," "which takes its beginning," says 
the record, "at Kenney'scove and runs down by the riverside 80 rods 
to Pyne cove and thence into the woods 480 rods to the edge of the 
Pitch pine plain upon a W. S. W. Lyne." (1 Ports. Rec. p. 77.) 
The several grants made about the same time to other persons, of all 
the remaining lands down the river to Boiling Rock, establish the dis- 
tance of Canuey's cove above that prominent land mark. The rea- 
son why this little cove was selected as the lower boundary of Bloody 
Point was, we conjecture, that it just embi-aced the land of James 











SKETCH MAP 



B^S€i?tT^^^^^- 



;-^p; 



p; I 



Isles^f Sholes 



W 



^'zMUes /a fijt Inch . 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 69 

scott Patent in 1656, as we. have described it, was 
accepted as final so lar as it related to the two por- 
tions set oft' to the "Shrewsbnry men" and to Cap- 
tain AViggin — those colored on the map in blue 
and in yellow. As to these portions there had 
nevei" existed any conflicting title, except that of 

Rawlings, an eai'ly and influential Dover man, whose farm had the 
cove for its lower boundary. 

''Hogstye Cove''' is ascertained from the terms of a survey made by 
Portsmouth in 1695. Mr. George Snell and Willian) Vaughan, the 
surveyors, "run the line," they report, "from Canney's Cove in the 
longe rech to Hoggstye cove at the mouth of ye great Bay, and from 
the middle of the mouth of ye one cove to the middle of ye mouth of 
3'e other is West and by South and East & by North and strikes Mr. 
William Furber's Barne." (1 Ports. Rec, p. 330.) 

Welshman's Cove on the Little Bay is still known as Welsh Cove 
among the ancient families in the vicinity. 

The entire neck of land lying above the line di'awn from Canney's 
Creek to Hogstye Cove was originally called, trom the circumstan- 
ces of the quarrel between Captain Wiggin and Neale, before re- 
fer-red to, Bloody Point — a name still retained by a projection into the 
I'iver nearly opposite Dover Point. 

'' Cotter ilTs DelighC' was a location at the extreme south-east cor- 
ner ol Great Bay near the mouth of Winnicot river, or perhaps 
Packer's creek. (1 N. H. Prov. Pap. 208, 222. 1 Ports. Rec. Anno 
1666.) We have been unable to discover the origin or meaning of 
this name. 

The site of Ccqjtain Chamijernoicnc's house upon the magnificent 
farm of the late Col. Joshua W. Peirce at Greenland, is still pomted 
out to the delighted antiquary. Here dwelt for many years, in some- 
thing of antique breadth and state, that relative and almost compan- 
ion of Rawleigh and Gilbert ; that noblest born and bred of all New 
Hampshire's first planters. 

Grand old English oaks, planted, as tradition has it, by the Cap- 
tain's own hands, still lift their brave vigorous heads over the fertile 
meadows — ti'ue Heme's oaks, we exclaimed at the fix'st glance — 



70 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

John Mason and his heirs under his patent of New 
Hampshire — a title, which, in the then political con- 
dition of England under Cromwell, hardly amount- 
ed to a cloud. 

The remainder of the Hilton or Squamscott pat- 
ent, as laid down by the Committee, lay wholly 
within the Pescataway Grant.* But though the 

unique in New Hampshire — a scene as beautiful as that from AVind- 
sor castle over Datchet Mead. 

The ancient name, Samhj Point, is retained to the present day. 
Not far from this Point is still discernible the cellar of the famous 
Squamscott house. Capt. Thomas Wiggin, so often referred to in 
these pages, as the constant friend of Mass. Bay, erected this house 
about 1650, and here he died in 1667. For fourteen years he had held 
the high office of Assistant to the Governor of Mass. Bay ; the only 
Piscataqua man. we believe, ever chosen to that position. Having, 
in 1651, purchased of Thomas Lake a large interest in the Squam- 
scott Patent, there was alloted to him and his partners, (who subse- 
quently released their interests to him,) a territory three miles square, 
along Exeter river, now embraced in the town of Stratham In 
close proximity to the "Squamscott House," in a field which slopes 
north towards the Bay, and almost upon the northern boundary of his 
land, are buried the bodies of that grim, sturdy Puritan and several 
generations of his family. The present owner of this burial ground, a 
lineal descendant of Capt. Thomas, conducted us to the cemetery. 
Headstones, footstoues, inscriptions, were all gone. Great maples 
and oaks were growing over the ancient Oocfs acre; dead leaves rus- 
tled along the weird and shadowy ground. As the Puritan had in 
his life resembled Joshua, the son of Nun, who lead the children of 
Israel into a land flowing with milk and honey, so, like Joshua was 
he fitly buried "in the border of his inheritance, in Timmath-serah, 
on the north side of the hill of Gaash." 

* This latter grant was still held as the cheiished property of the 
town of Portsmouth. Even so late, for instance, as 1660, Ports- 
mouth appointed Commissioners to run out the line between that 
town and Hampton, "always provided," says the record, "that not 



THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 71 

owners of the Pescataway or Great House Patent 
had, as we have argued, a superior title to the 
whole peninsula, embraced within their limits, yet 
in the present posture of affairs, now that all the 
land below Boiling Rock was reserved to them by 
the Committee for Partition, it was deemed better 
by John and Richard Cutt, Capt- Brian Pendleton, 
Richard Martyn, Joshua Moodey and the few oth- 
ers who then ruled the lower plantation under the 
Massachusetts, to negociate peaceably for the pur- 
chase of the small remainder of land, left to the 
Squamscott proprietors, than to undertake a proba- 
bly fruitless appeal to the Courts of Law. Having 
resolved on this course, the above named gentlemen 
so managed the affair, that in a few years they 
themselves became owners of nearly the entire 
tract. 

In 1658, oi" before that year, the selectmen of 
Portsmouth bought of Thomas Lake the entire 
tract of land between Kenney's creek and Boiling 
Rock, on the river, and running back nearly a mile 
and a half into the land "to the edge of the pitch 
pine plain upon a W. S. W. Lyne." The consid- 

any of the lauds belonging to the Great House Patent be granted to 
be in the township of Hampton by tliose empowei'ed by us.'' (1 
Ports. Rec, p. 66.) The Great House Patent seems to have been the 
familiar title of the old "grant and confirmation of Pescataway," so 
far as it applied to the southerly side of the river. This southerly 
section of the Pescataway Grant appears also to have been some- 
times entitled the "Twenty Thousand acre patent." (1 N. H. Prov. 
Pap. 83-96.) 



72 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

eration ^^a^'cZ hy the town was £'50. In 16G1 this 
large tract was divided and laid out among Capt. 
Brian Pendleton and his associates;* 240 acres 
each to Capt. Pendleton and John Cutt, 80 acres 
to Joshua Moodey, and52 acres to Richard Martyn. 

The large and valnable tract stretching from 
Winnicut Kiver along Great Bay to Sandy Point 
seems to have lain unappropriated until 1(369, at 
which time the town, having determined to assert 
their own superior title over it against the Squam- 
scott patentees, granted two-thirds of the entire 
tract to John Cutt, Nathaniel Freyer, Capt. James 
Pendleton and others, "provided," continues the 
Record, "the parties abovesaid maintain and de- 
fend the same in the towne's behalf at their, the 
aforesaid parties owne proper cost and charge 
against any that shall oppose — further that the 
town grants and confirms unto Mr. Andrew Wiggin 
the right and title to his land, as was granted to 
him by Capt. Lake and Capt. Waldron with the 
priviledges of our town, provided wee recover the 
land aforesd by law."t A few grants to private 
individuals seem also to have been made by Lake 
and Waldron out of their portion of the Squam- 
scott Patent, but on quite nominal considerations. 

In these several ways, the pretended claim of 
the Hilton Point proprietors to any of the land 

* 1 Ports. Rec. p. 61-68-77. 
t Id. p. 135. 



THE PISCATAQUA PATEJ^'TS. 73 

covered by the " Grant of Pescataway," or " Great 
House Patent," was at last extinguished, or repudi- 
ated, and nearly the whole of that territory (ex- 
cept what remained to Dover) fell into the hands 
of a knot of men at Portsmouth, as rapacious as 
they were harsh and bigoted. 

As to the " Dover Patent,^'' or northerly portion 
of the Hilton Patent, as it was construed by Mas- 
sachusetts, we do not find that any steps were ever 
taken to lay out and bound the land covered by it, 
but the township of Dover having been partly 
bounded out in 1642, shortly after the union of the 
Piscataqua to Massachusetts, received in 1656, con- 
cui-rently with the partition of Squamscott, a quit 
claim from the planters of all their interest in Do- 
ver, with a slight reservation of about 16 acres.^ 

The only substantial advantage derived from the 
Mass. construction of the Hilton Patent was taken 
by the Massachusetts themselves. Jurisdiction 
over the Piscataqua had been obtained by the skil- 
ful use of that instrument, and when once got, it 
was firmly kept, after that instrument had disap- 
peared. But this usurpation, of which it has been 
said " a more unjust and tyrannical act never was 
perpetrated on this continent,"t was not destined 
to endure for many years. The people of the low- 
er Piscataqua were in spirit deadly hostile to the 

* 1 N, H. Prov. Pap. 223. 

t Potter's Hist, of Manchester, p. 116. 



74 THE PISCATAQUA PATENTS. 

Mass. Bay. Shortly after the annexation, a few of 
the Pnritan sort and faith had crept into the 
country, and by the aid of the Bay had seized on 
the offices and places of power and approjjriated to 
themselves nearly all the common lands; but the 
original planters grew daily more and more in- 
censed. In 1651, the inhabitants of Strawberi-y 
Bank oj^enly rebelled and attempted to withdraw 
their subjection to the Boston govei-nment.'^ Bat 
this outbreak was suppressed. Another effort was. 
made to the same purpose on the arrival of the 
Royal Commissioners in 1664, though without per- 
manent success. But in 1679, the Massachusetts 
usurpation over the Piscataqua was terminated by 
the erection of 'New Hampshire into a Koyal Prov- 
ince. 

Thus did the last fruits of the Hilton Patent de- 
cay and perish ; thus were the angry broils of foi'ty 
years composed. The proprietors of the Patent 
had after all profited little or nothing by the at- 
tempted appropriation of Piscataqua lands; the 
Massachusetts were in the end compelled to dis- 
gorge the purloined jurisdiction they had so un- 
easily obtained and kept, and thus retributive jus- 
tice was at last meted out to all the actors in the 
transaction. 

In conclusion and recapitulation ot the views 
presented in this monograph, we have endeavored 
* 1 N. H. Prov. Pap. 195. 



THK PrsCATAQUA PATENTS. 75 

to show, that it was the desire of Mass. Bay to in- 
clude the Piscataqua region within her limits and 
to secure there a good neighborhood of " honest 
men," which led her magistrates to effect, through 
their friend Capt. Thomas Wiggin, in 1633, a pur- 
chase and transfer of the Hilton Point Patent to 
the Puritan Lords and gentlemen of Shrewsbuiy; 
whose successors in Kiil, in accordance, we sup- 
pose, with the original understanding, made a full 
submission of the Patent to Mass. jurisdiction. At 
the same time, in furtherance of the same general 
design, a sUitutory construction was put upon the 
Patent, by which it was split into two distinct por- 
tions, and the lower or Squampscott portion was 
violently stretched so as to cover the whole south 
ern bank of the river from Squamscott falls lo its 
mouth. 

The Hilton Patent having thus served its politi- 
cal and religious purpose, was never fully enforced. 
Large portions of its territory were granted to Do- 
ver and a still larger part was retained by Straw- 
berry Bank, and in the conclusion of the whole 
matter, the Squamscott patentees took but trifling 
advantage from the distorted misconstruction of 
their grant. 

The long controversy was no doubt of trifling 
importance, but whoe\'er will study it attentively 
will see displayed such a stubborn conflict between 
patentee and planter; such a hot contention be- 



76 THPJ PISCJATAQUA 3»ATENTS. 

tween Royalist and Roiindhead ; such fierce hatred 
between Pnritan and Churchman; and at all times 
such political sagacity and vigor of thought, as 
make the story of the Hilton Point Patent (only a 
brief outline of which we have sketched) the most 
instructive if not entertaining in the early annals 
of New Hampshire. 

The real histoiy ot New Hampshire during the 
first half century of its existence has not yet been 
written. Until a very recent date, the only orig- 
inal materials for such a history, available to our 
students, wei'c the scanty relics of our town and 
county records, and a few documents preserved 
among the Archives of Massachusetts or in pri- 
vate hands together with some casual hints and 
prejudiced notices of the Piscataqua to be found 
among the historians oT Plymouth and the Bay. 
Dr. Belknap's narrative of this early period, found- 
ed upon materials such as these — the only ones, 
howevei", at his command — could at best have 
drawn a mere outline of its history; and now it 
turns out that even the outline of our early history 
made by that elegant historian is utterly mistaken 
and distorted. The annals of ISTew Hampshire 
from the time of its fii'st planting down to its 
erection into a royal province, in 1679, require to 
be entirely I'cvvritten. A great mass of new mate- 
rials for that purpose has lately been gathered to- 
gether by our nntiquai'ians, and now await only the 



THE PISOATAQITA PATENTS. 77 

kindling" pen of an impartial historian to shed a 
clear and satisfoctoiy light over the tortuons ways 
and the dark mysteries of onr early history. 



APPENDIX. 



The Hilton or Squatnscott Patent. 

To all X'riau People to whorae these pi-esents shall come, (Ireet- 
ing, [alter the usual recital oi the great grant by King James in 1620,] 

Now know yee that the said President and Councell by Vii-tue & 
Authoi-ity of his ^Nlajties said Letters Pattents, and tor and in consid- 
eracon that Edward Hilton & his Associates hath already at his and 
their owne proper costs and charges transported sundry servants to 
plant in New England aforesaid at a place there called by the natives 
Wecanacohunt otherwise Hilton's point lying some two leagues from 
the mouth of the River Paskataquack in New England aforesaid 
where they have already Built some houses, and plantetl Corne, And 
for that he doth further intend by Gods Divine Assistance, to transport 
thither more people and cattle, to the good increase and advan(^emt 
& for the better settling and strengthing of their plantacon as also 
that they may be the better encouraged to proceed insoe pious a work 
will 'h may Especially tend to the prtJijagaeon of Religion and to the 
Great increase of Trade to his Majties Realmes and Dominions, and 
the advancement ot publique plantac(m. Have given granted En- 
feofied and Confirmed, and by ihis their p'sent writing doe fully clear- 
ly and absolutelj- give grant enfeoflfe and Gonfirmo unto the said Ed- 
ward HiltDU his heires and assignes for ever, all that part of the Riv- 
er Pascatacjuack called or known by the name of Wecanacohunt or 
Hilton's Point with the south side of the said River, up to tlie ffall of 



80 appe:n^dix. 

the River. :uid three miles into the Maine Land by all the breadth 
aforesaid. Together with all the Shoares Creeks Bays Harbors and 
Coasts; alongst the sea within the limitts and Bounds aforesaid with 
the woods and Islands next adjoyneing to the said Lands, not being 
already granted by the said Councell unto any other jjerson or per- 
sons together alsoe with all the Lands Rivers Mines minerallsof what 
kinde or nature soever, woods Quarries, Marshes, Water's, Lakes 
ffishings, Huntings, Hawkings, ffowlings, Comodities Emolumls and 
hereditaments whatsoever withall and singular their and every of 
their Appts in or within the limitts or bounds aforesaid, or to the 
said Lands lying within the same limitts or Bounds belonging or in 
any wise appertaining. To have and to hold, all and singular the 
said Lands and p'mises, with all and singular the woods Quarries 
Mai'shes, Waters, Rivers, Lalies, fiishings, flfowlings, Hawkings, 
Huntings, Mynes, IMineralls of wliat kynde or nature soever, privi- 
ledges, Rights Jurisdieons Libbertyes Royalties and all other proffits 
Comodities Emoluments and hereditaments whatsoever, before in 
and by these p'sents given and granted, or herein meant intenconed 
or intended to be hereby given t)r granted, with their and every of 
their appts and e\'ery part and parcell there of (Except before Except- 
ed) unto the said Edward Hilton his heires. Associates and Assignes 
forever to the onely proper use and behoofe of the said Edward Hil- 
ton his heires Associates & Assignes for ever, yielding and paying 
unto our Soveraigne Lord the King one ffifth part of Gold and Silver 
Oares, and another ffifth part to the Councell aforesaid and their suc- 
cessoi's to be holden of the said Councell and their successors by the 
rent hereafter in these p'sents Reserved, yielding and paying there- 
for yearly for ever unto the said Councell their successors or Assignes 
for every hundred Acres of the saiti Land in use the sume of twelve 
pence of Lawfull money of England into the hanils of the Rent gath- 
erer for the time being of the said Councell yr successors or Assignes 
for all services whatsoever, And the said Councell for the affaires of 
Nevi' England in America aforesaid, Doe by these p'sents nominate 
Depute, Authorize appoint and in their place and stead put William 
Blackston of New England in America aforesaid clerk William Jef- 
fries and Thomas Lewis of the same place Gent and either or any of 
them Joyntly or severally to be their true and Lawfull Attorny or 
Attorneys and in their name and stead to enter into the said part or 
porcon of Land, and other the p'mises with the appts by these p'sents 



APPENDIX. 81 

Given and granted or into some part theveof in the name of the 
whole, and peaceable & quiett possession and seisin thereof for them 
to take and the same soe had and tai<en in their name and stead to 
deliver possession & seisn thereof unto the said Edward Hilton his 
heii'es Associates and Assignes, according to the tenor torme and ef- 
fect of these p'sents Ratilieing Confirmeing and allowing all and 
whatsoever the said Atiorny or Attornyes, or either of them shall doe 
in or about the p'mises by virtue hereof. In witnesse whereof the said 
Conncell f r the atfaires of New England in America aforesaid, have 
hereunto caused their common Seale to be putt the twelfth day of 
March Anno Dmi 1629, And in the fifth yeare of the Reigne of our 
Soveraigne Lord Charles by the Grace of God ot England Scotland, 
ffrance and Ireland, defender of the fFaith &c. 

R() : Waravxcke. 

Memo: that upon the 7" day of July Anno Dmi IGol Annoq: R's 
Carol! pri : Septimo : b^y virtvie of a warrt of Attorny within men- 
coned from the Councell of the aflaires in New England under their 
Comon seale unto Thomas l^ewis he the said Thomas Lewis had tak- 
en quiett possession ol the within menconed p'mises and Livery and 
Seisen thereof hath given to the within named Edward Hilton in the 
p'sertce of us. 

Vera Copia Eflicit jir nos Thomas Wiggiii 

Tim : s Nicholas Wm. Hilton 

Pet Coppeer Saml Sharpie 

James Downe 

Vera Copia 

Attest Rich: Partridge, Cler. 

[Endorsed] 

Grant from the Councdl of Plymouth to Edward Hilton of Lands 
in New Hampshire in New England datetl the 12" March J(J29. 
For Hilton's Point And the south side of said River & to the falls. 
Allen vs. Waldron 
Feb'y 1704—5. 



82 APPENDIX. 

II. 

Grant and Conjiwinatlon of Pescatatvay to Sr. Ferdinan- 
do Gorges and Capt. Mason and others, Ano 1631. 

This Indenture made the 3d day of Novcmr Ano Dni 1631 : and 
in ye 7th year of ye Roigne of Our Sovraigne Charles by the Grace 
of God of Enghind Scotland France and Ireland King Defender of 
the ffiiith &c. Betweene the Presidt & Councill of New England on 
ye one pty and Sr Ferdinando Gorges Knt Capt John Mason of Lon- 
don Esqr and their Associates John Cotton Henry Gardner, Geo : 
Griffith Ehwin Guy Thomas VVannerton Thomas Eyre and Eliezer 
Eyre on ye other pty Witnesseth [after reciting the Great Patent of 
King James to the President & Council of New England, dated 
Nov. 3, 1620,] that the sd Presidt and Councill of their full free and 
mutnall consent, as well to ye end that all the Lands Woods Lakes 
Loucks, Rivers, Waters, ponds Islands and Fishings, wth all other 
Traffiquc Profflts and Commodities whatsoeuer to them or any of 
them belonging, and hereafter in these Puts meuconed may be whol- 
ly and entirely invested appropriated secured and settled in and 
upon ye sd Sr ffixrdinando Gorges, Capt John Mason and theii- Asso- 
ciates John Cotton, Henry Gardner, George Griffith, Edwyn Guy, 
Thomas Wannerlon Thorn Eyrie, & Eliezer Eyre as by diuers spe- 
ciall Services by them already done for the aduancement of the sd 
Plantacon by makeing of Clap board and pipestaues makeing of 
Salt Panns and Salt, transpoiting of Vines for makeing of Wines 
searching for Iron Oare being all businesse of uery great Conse- 
quence for causeing of many Soules both men, women and boys 
and store of Shipps to be employed thither, and so in short time 
proue a great Nursery for Shipping and Mariners, and also a great 
helpe to such as in this Kingdome want good Imploj-mt And fur- 
ther for Ytthe sd Sr fterd Gorges Capt. John Mason and their said As- 
sociates John Cotton Henry Gardner (leo. Griffith Edwin Guy Thom : 
Wannerton Tho Eyre and Eliezer Eyer have by their Agents there 
taken great paines and spent much tyme in the discouery of the 
Countrie all wch hath cost them (as we are credibly Informed) 
30001b and upwards, which hitherto they are wholly out of purse 
upon hope of doing good in time to come to ye publique. And also 
for other good and sufficient Causes and Consideracon the sd Presidt 



APPENDIX. 83 

aiul Councill especially thereunto moiieing, Haue given granted 
bargained sold assigned aliend, sett ouer enfeoffed and confirmed 
and by ttiese pnts Do giue grant, bargaine sell assigue, aliene sett 
ouer enfeoffe and confirm unto the sd fferelinando Georges Capt 
John Mason John Cotton Henr Gardnei- Geo Griffith F^dwin (luy 
Thom. Wannerton Thorn. Eyere and Eliezer Eyre, their Heirs and 
Assignes for euer All that house and cliiefe habitaccn situate and 
being at Pascalaway als Pascataquack als Pascaquacke in New Eng- 
land aforesaid, wherein Capt Walt. Neale and ye Colony wth him 
now doth or lately did reside togeather wth the Gardens and Corne 
ground occupied and planted by the sd Colonic, and the Salt workes 
allready begun as aforesd. And also all that porcon of Lai.d lying 
wthn the precincts hereafter menconed, beginniag upon the Sea 
coast 5 miles to the Wtward of or from the sd chiefe IJabitacon or 
Plantation now possessed by the sd Capt Walter Neale for ye use of 
the Adventurers to Liconia (being in the latitude of 43 Degr or 
thereabouts in the Harbour of Pascataquac-k als Pascataquack als 
Passataway, and so forth from ye sd beginning Eastwd tfc North 
Eastwd and so proceeding Northwds or North VVcstwds into ye 
Harbour and Riuer along the Coasts and Shoarcs thereof including 
all the Islands and Isletes lying wthn or neere unto the same up- 
wards unto the head land opposite unto the plantacon or llabitacon 
now or late in the Tenure or Occupation of Edw Hilton & from 
thence wt wds & South wt wds in ye midle of the Riuer and through 
the midle of ye Bay or Lake of Pasquacack als Pascaquack or by 
what other name or names it hath toward the bottome or \\ ester- 
most part of ye Riuer called Pascassocke to the falls thereof, and 
from thence by an Imaginary l^ine to pass ouer, and to the Sea, 
where the Prambulacon begann 'fogeather wth all ye Lands, Soyle, 
(iround Wood, Quarries, Mines tiishing Hunting Hawking" ffowling 
Comodities and Hereditamts whatsoeuer, 'I'ogeather also wth all 
prrogatiues, Jurisdiccons Royallties, prinileidges, ffranchises and 
preheminence wth in ye precincts of l^and conteined wthin ye limits 
or bounds aforesaid. And also the Isles of Shoales, and ye ffisliings 
thereabouts And all the Seas wthin 15 miles of thaforesd Sea Coast. 
And also all the Sea Coast and Land lying on ye East and North east 
side of the Harboure and Riuer of Pascataway aforesd and opposite 
to the bounds aboue mencioned begining 15 miles to ye S. eastwaid 
of ye Mouth oi- first entrance and begining of the said Harboure, 



84: APPENDIX. 

and so upp to ye falls and into the ponds, or Lakes that feed the sd 
ffalls, by the space of 30 miles including the sd ponds or Lakes 
and the Shoores thereof, and so crossing into the Landward, at a 
right angle by the space of 3 miles the whole length tht-reof from ye 
sd mouth or first entrance from the Sea and Eastwds into ye Sea wch 
sd 3 miles shalbe allowed for ye breadth of ye sd land last menconed 
both upon ye land and sea, As also all ye land Soyle (Ground Woods, 
Quarrie, Mines, flishings Hunting Hawking ttbwling Commodities 
and Hereditamts whatsoeuer, togeather wth all prerogatiues Juris- 
diccons Royallties, Prinileidges, ffranchises and prheminence wthin 
the prcincts of Land last menconed, conteined To haue and to hold 
all ye sd House and Habitacon porcons of Land and all Lakes and 
Islands therein conteined as aforesaid, and all and singular other ye 
prmisses hereljy given, granted, bargained, sold, aliened, enfeoffed, 
and confirmed, wth all and singular the appurtences and euery part 
and pcell thereof unto ye sd Sr fferdenando (iorges, Capt John Ma- 
son, John Cotton, Heniy Gai'dner Geo. Griffith, Edwyn Guy, Thom- 
as Wannerton, Thomas Eyre and Llyezer Eyer to ye only use & be- 
hoofe of them ye sd fferd. Gorges &c their Heircs and Ass. for 
euer. Yielding and paying unto our Souer Ld ye King his Heires 
and Successors 1-6 of all ye Oare of Gold and Siluer that from time 
to time and at all tymes hereafter shalbe there gotten, had & ob- 
teined for all seruices, duties and Coraands, and also yeilding & pay- 
ing unto the sd Presidt Council! and their Successers euery yeere 
yeerely for euer 40s sterl. at ye ffeast of St Mich : tharchangell if it 
shalbe lawfully demanded, at the Assurance House on the West side 
of the Royll Exchange in London. [Then follow the usual cov^e- 
nants for quiet possession and further assurance — and the appoint- 
ment of Capt. Thorn. Camock and Henry Joselin as attorneys to 
deliver seizin and possession.] In Witnesse whereof the said pres- 
ident and Councill to two parts of these presents both of One Tenor 
haue sett their Common Scale and to one part thereof the sd Sr 
Ferden : Gorges, Capt. John Mason, John Cotton, Henry Gardiner, 
Geo: Griffith, i:dwyn Guy, Tho: Wannerton Thorn: Eyre and Elie- 
zer Eyre haue sett their hands and Scale the Day and yeere first 
aboue written. 

(Endorsed in pencil) 3. Nov. 163L 

N. Engd. 



APPENDIX. 85 

[Note.] 

Previous to our discovery of this instrument, our knowledge of its 
terms was derived solely Irom the abstract printed in Hubbard's Gen. 
Hist, of New England, p. 215. Hubbard had evidently seen a true 
copy of the instrument which he states was then extant {circa 1G80) 
in the hands of some gentlemen living at Portsmouth. He quotes 
accurately considerable portions of the document ; but when he un- 
dertakes to set forth a condensed description ol the limits of the 
Grant, his language, as ■printed, is misleading or unintelligible. The 
text is as follows: "AnniUg other things there is also added [to the 
Pescataway grant] salt works, lying and being situate near the har- 
bor of Pascataqua with all the lands adjoining, that run along five 
miles westward by the sea-coast, and so to cross over in an angle ot 
three miles breadth towards a plantation in the hands of Edward 
Hilton supposed to be about Dover and so towards Exeter.'' 

This description is absolutely without meaning. What significa- 
tion can be attached to the words, "■and so to cross over in an angle 
of three miles breadth taivards a jilantatio7i in the hands of Edward 
Hiltonf And, moreover, this description, as it stantls printed, pur- 
porting to be copied out of the Patent itself, is on its face erroneous, 
for how could a Grant, made in 1631, refer to the town of Exeter, 
which was unknown and unnamed until several years later? 

We may be confident that the Rev. William Hubbard did not 
write any such description of the -'Pescataway Cirant," as is print- 
ed in his historj% and that the jargon of his printed language has 
been introduced by the ignorance or carelessness of his transcribers, 
or by the impossibility of deciphering at times "Hubbard's crabbed 
autograph." As is well known, the "General History of New 
England" was printed by the Mass. Hist. Society from a manuscript 
which once belonged to Prince. This manuscript was not in the au- 
thor's own handwriting, and ditierent jjortions of it were copiiid by 
several difl:erent transcribers, some ot whose chirography is illegible 
to the most careful study. Under such circumstances, the printed 
History could hardly escape numerous errors which, though they 
have severely shaken the authority of the work, are not justly 
chargeable against the "learned and ingenious authoi'" himself. 

VVhoever will take the pains to compare Hubbard's description of 
the "Grant of Pescataway," above quoted, with the language of the 
Instrument itself, will be satisfied that he had b(»tore him a cop3' of 



86 APPENDIX. 

that instrument at the time he extracted his description from it, be- 
cause the words used in this description are nearly all of them to be 
found in the Grant. The description, as printed, purports from its 
inverted commas to be quoted literall}^ from the instrument itself. 
This is obviously incorrect, as Hubbard undertakes only to give the 
substance, not the language, of the grant. 

What were the exact words used by the historian in making up his 
epitome of the Pescataway grant, we shall perhaps never know ; 
but it may be entertaining, in the absence of any sort of knowledge 
on the subject, to indulge in fanciful conjectures. Suppose we sup- 
ply to Hubbard's description the few words, here printed in italics, 
to be found in the Patent itself, but omitted joerhaps ])y the transcrib- 
er ; the clause will then read thus : 

"Among other things there is also added salt works lying and be- 
ing situate near the harbor of Pascataqua with all the lands adjoin- 
ing, that run along five miles westward by the sea coast and also (he 
lands on the east side of the river, to cross over into the landward at a 
Hght angle by the space of three miles breadth towards a Plantation 
in the hands of Ed. Hilton supposed to be about Dover and so to- 
wards Exeter.*' 

The description, as thus amended, would be an intelligible and 
generally accurate abstract of the limits of the Pescataway Grant. 



III. 
Paper of Submiftsion. 

The 14th of the 4th mo. 1641. 

Whereas some Lords, knights, gentlemm & others tlid purchased 
of Mr. Edward Hilton, & of some merchants of Bristoll two pat- 
tents, one called Wecohannet or Hilton's point commonly called or 
knowne by the name of Dover or Northam, the other pattent set 
forth by the name of the south part of the ryver of Pascataquack be- 
ginning at the sea side or near thereabout & coming round the said 
land by the river unto the falls of Quamscott as more fully appear 



APPENDIX. 87 

by the said grant : And whereas also the inhabitants residing at 
I)resent within the liraitts of both the said grants have of late & for- 
merly complained of the want of some good government amongst 
them & desired some help in this particular from the j irisdiction of 
the Mass Bay, whereby they may be ruled and ordered according 
unto God both in church & commonweal, and for the avoyding such 
insufferable disorders whereby God hath been much dishonored 
amongst them. Those gentlemen whose names are here specified, 
George Willis gent, Kobt. Saltonstall gent. Will. Whiting, Edward 
HoUiock, Thomas Makepeace, partners in the said pattent do in be- 
halfe of the rest of the patentees dispose of the lands & jurisdiction 
of the premises as followeth, being willing to further such a good 
worke have hereby foi* themselves & in the name of the rest of the 
pattentees given up & set over all that power of jurisdiction or gov- 
ernment of the said people dwelling and abiding within the lim- 
itts of both the said pattents unto tlie government of the Mas- 
sachusetts Bay, by them to be ruled & ordered in all causes crim- 
inall and civill as inhabitants dwelling within the limitts of the; 
Massachusetts government & to be subject to pay in church & 
commonweale as the said inhabitants of the Massachusetts bay do 
& no other. And the freemen of the said 2 pattents to enjoy the 
like liberties as othei' freemen do in the said Massachusetts govern" 
ment, & that there shall be a court ot justice kept within one of the 
2 patents, which shall have the same power that the courts of Salem 
& Ipswich have, Provided always, & it is hereby declared that one 
of the said pattents, that is to say that on the south side of the ryver 
of Pascataquack, & in the other pattent one third part of the land 
with ail improved land in the said pattent to the lords & gentlemen 
& other owners shall be & remain unto them, their heii's & assigns 
forever as their proper right & as having true interest therein saving 
the interest of jurisdiction to the Massachusetts, and the said pattent 
of Wecohannett shall be divided as formerly is exprest by indifferent 
men equally chosen on both sides, whereby the plantation may bee 
furthered & all occasions of differences avoyded. 

And this honored court of the Massachusetts hearby promise to bee 
heelpful to the maintenance of the right of the Pattentees in both the 
said Pattents in all the legall courses in any part of their jurisdiction. 

Subscribed by the fore named gentlemen in the presence of the 
general court assembled the day afore written. C. Rec, vol. 1, pp. 
304 and 5. 



88 APPENDIX. 

The Act of Union. 

A Genei'al Court held at Boston the 9th day of the 8th month 1641. 

Whereas it appeareth that by the extent of the line (according to 
our patent) that the ryver of Pascataquack is within the jurisdiction 
of the Massachusetts & conference being had (at severall times) with 
the said people & and some deputed by the Generall Court lor the 
setteling and establishing of order in the administration of justice 
there. It is now ordered by the Generall Court holden at Boston 
the 9th day of the 8th month 1641, & with the consent of the inhabi- 
tants of the said ryver as followeth : 

Imprimis, That from henceforth the said people inhabiting there 
are and shall be accej^ted & reputed under the govemiment of the 
Massachusetts as the rest of the inhabitants within the said jurisdic- 
tion are. 

Also that they shall have the same order and way of administi'ation 
of justice and way of keeping courts as is established at Ipswich & 
Salem. 

Also that they shall be exempted from all publique chai'ges other 
than those that shall arise for, or irom among themselves or Irom 
any occasion or course that may be taken to procure their own par- 
ticular good or benefit. 

Also they shall enjoy all such lawful! liberties of fishing, planting 
felling timber as formerly they have enjoyed in the said ryver. 

Mr Simon Bradsti-eete, Mr Israeli Stoughton, Mr Samuel Symonds, 
Mr Willi. Tynge, Mr Francis Williams & Mr Edward Hilton or any 
tour of them, whereof Mr Bradstreete or Mr Stoughton to bee one 
these shall have the same power that the Quarter Courts at Salem 
and Ipswich have. 

Also the inhabitants there are allowed to send two deputyes from 
the whole ryver to the Court at Boston. 

Also Mr. Bradstreete, Mr Stoughton anil the rest of the commis- 
sioners shall have power at the Court at Pascataquack to appoint 
two or three to joyne with Mr Williams & Mr Hilton to govern the 
people as the magistrates do here till the next Genei'all Court, or till 
the Court take further order. 

It is further ordered that until our commissioners shall aiTive at 



APPENDIX. 89 

Pascataquack, those men who already have authority by the late 
combination to govern the jjeople there shall continue in the same 
authority & power to bee determined at the coming of the said com- 
missioners & not before. C. Rec, vol. 1, pp. 319, 20. 



Report of ConimiUee on Partition. 

IvJay 22, 1656. 

We whose names are hereto subscribed according to an order of 
the honored Generall Court in November 1655, appointinge us to 
make a first devision of the Pattent of Swamscott doe thus make 
our returne. 

When we come to peruse the Pattent we found it to extent! tor 
the length of it from the lower part of the river Pascataquack on 
the south side ol said River unto the falls of said River at Exeter, & 
for breadth along the said River 3 miles from the falls of the head 
lyne for the breadth of it, which head lyne we run upon a southeast 
poynt of the compass which ended three quarters of a mile beyond 
Aspe brooke towards Hampton about iO pole beyond or below the 
high way where we marked a great i-ed oak on fowre sides. 

2dly. From the said head lyne we measured for the length on the 
Northeast poynt of the Compass 6 miles & a halfe the which ex- 
tended to that part of the bay near Wiuicott River. 

3dly. We measured a second cross line for breadth beginning at 
Squamscott house extending it 3 miles upon the south east poynt 
where we did mark several pine trees. The rest of the land be- 
longing to the Pattent about & bidow the great bay we understood 
to be impassable as to measuringe by reason of the exceedinge thick 
swamps ; but we took the best information we might of divers *& 
severall inhabitants of the great Bay & Straberry Banke & their re- 
ports agreed viz., that from the lower part of the bottom of the 
Bay neere Capt. Champoun's house to the River neere the Boyling 
Rock or thereabout all the neck of land within that Lyne unto the 



90 APPENDIX. 

little Bay Contayninge as nceie as men of best experience can in- 
forme about 4 miles square being all within the Pattent. And 
whereas from the easterly part of the great Bay, being a part of 
the river, we should have measured 3 miles into the land we find 
in that place by credible information the land so narrow to the sea- 
ward that we can allow no more accordinij to the intent of the Pat- 
tent as we understand it that one mile and a halfe to be run from 
each pojmt of the bottom of the Bay upon an easterly line into ye 
land. 

To the matter of service appoynted unto us by the General 1 
Courte concerning divission of the Pattent, we finding the present 
owners to be of three sorts or ranks we have therefore agreed to make 
three several! divissions. The first division being 8 shares & one 
quarter belonging to Mr Nathaniel Gardner, Mr Tho. Lake & part- 
ners, we assign and lay out to them all the hind from Bloody Point 
unto the boyling Rock for breadth or tliereabouts & for length ex- 
tendinge to the lower lyne of the middle devission which is about 40 
pole from Sandy Poynt & so the hme running Southeast 3 miles in 
the land as also the land lying upon the bottom of the great Bay, 
being or extendinge one mile & halfe from every part of the bottom 
of the bay upon an east'ly lyne into the woods in which division of 
the land & marsh graunted unto Dover by the generall Court shall be 
& remayne to them forever viz., the land from Kinges Creeke to a 
(XM'tain Cove neere the mouth of the great Bay called Hogstye Cove 
with all the marsh from that place round about the bay up to Cot- 
terills Delight with 400 acres of upland as it graunted by the Court 
bounded layd out and possessed by the inhabitants of Dover with 
50 acres of upland more about or neere the great Bay with 50 acres 
to be layd out and disposed of by Capt. Richard Walden to some of 
the inhabitants of Dover, whom he sees fltt. 

The second division being 8 shares & one quarter belonging to 
Capt. Thomas \\'iggan & partners, who have purchased and ob- 
tained the same, we assigne & lay out 3 miles square beginning at a 
plump of trees standing on a peece of old planting land about 40 
poles below Sandy poynt, & up the river upon a streight line toward 
Exeter, the River being the bounds of it on the North side & at each 
end to run a lyne upon the southeast poynt of the Compass 3 miles 
into the land there to bound it on that side, Provided that Capt Tho 
Wiggan pay unto the other two thirds the sum of £66 13s 4d ac- 



APPENDIX. 91 

cording to their shares and proportions in boards within 6 months 
if demanded which ho is to pay at either of his saw-mills in Pascat- 
aquack river. 

To the third division beiny 8 shares & one quarter belonging to 
the Shrewsbury men, to which we assigne & lay out all that land 
from the uppermost lyne of the middle division to the mouth of the 
Creeke called .Mr Wheelwrights creeke, the same to run 3 miles to- 
wards Hampton upon a southeast lyne all the land between this lyne 
& Exetei- fiills to the full extent of the Lyne to ly[e] to Exeter, being 
graunted to them by deed of gift by Capt. VViggan sole agent for the 
Company. 

The Court allows & approves of the ^ Samuel Winslow, 
returne of this Committee as is here ^ War Bartholomew, 
cxprest. (^ Samuel Hall. 



LBD14 



